This past Sunday, on our way home from the ranch, we made a pit stop in downtown Houston at the zoo to celebrate Ruth's 4th birthday!
The girls were extremely excited - and frankly, so was I, because both of the girls managed to take a good hour long nap in the car before we got there. (Which usually means we will have a fun outing!)
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| Stylish and ready |
The parking around the zoo is terrible!! But it meant that Clara & Ruth had a good amount of time to play and for Ruth to open her present before we went in.
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| Girlish excitement |
Then, while BreAnna got everything ready with tickets and a wagon, Clara and Emma explored this cool rhino statue coming out of the building:
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| what does a Rhino say? |
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| Natural Encounters - a turtle! |
Emma was stoked about this little tunnel she found that let her crawl through all of the piranhas.
Eventually Clara joined her too - as well as the other kiddos.
I had to drag Emma away from the piranhas as she was still waving, calling "bye bye" and blowing kisses. Apparently little girlfriend likes her fish to have some attitude.
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| more fish! pretty fish. |
The Elephants were exciting for everyone - but especially for Emma! She loved them!
She doesn't look happy here, but it was mostly because I was asking her to come with me and away from the elephants, haha.
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| A cougar |
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| All 6 of the party guests |
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| Can you *spot* the sleeping Leopard? |
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| Ducks! |
We took a break by the duck pond to celebrate Miss Ruth with snacks and juice and cookies.
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| The Olaf cookie may have gotten the best of CB :) |
Time for some giraffes!
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| how does she fit in there!? |
Two buddies and a herd of giraffes:
I promise Emma Lou was having fun. I have no idea how I didn't manage to catch her smiles on my pictures.
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| Rhinos!! |
The rhinos were fighting but every time I turned on the camera they stopped!
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| Sweet BreAnna & Emma Lou |
Time for some apes & gorillas! so cool!
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| "Hello Clara" - crazy close encounter! |
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| there's Ruthie too |
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| This was Clara's favorite part of the day when I asked her later |
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| Pumba! |
Emma was not such a big fan of the ledges we saw all day, but she still wanted to see the animals so she'd sllooowwwlllly scoot herself closer.
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| "Yook!" |
Then we got to play some drums!
And "try on" some silly masks:
And play chase with our friends:
By then our kids were running out of steam - 3.5 hours at the zoo is a lot of work!
On our way out the elephants were mating! Clara was like "be nice elephant!!" and I just had to laugh.
One last picture of all of the girls together:
Thank you for inviting us Ruth! We had so much fun! Happy Birthday!
