We're at Grandma and Grandpa's this weekend and today we went to the zoo. I like going to the zoo. I like seeing all the different animals. We have a zoo near our house, but it doesn't have elephants and giraffes and lions and tigers. That's why I like to go the zoo when we're at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

When we got to the zoo, we went and saw the elephants first. Sometimes when we've been here, the elephants aren't out, but all three of them were outside today.

This is Blackie, the hippopotamus. He is 54 years old. We learned later on that Blackie is being retired in a couple of weeks. They are going to be reconstructing the whole area where the elephants and other African animals live and building a state of the art African habitat for them. In the meantime, the elephants are being moved to the Columbus Zoo until 2011. Because Blackie is so old, it didn't seem like a good idea to try and move him that far so he's going to a hippo retirement condo that's being built on the end of giraffe barn.

The air show was going on this weekend, too, and just when we got around to see this crane, three helicopters started circling around overhead. The crane started squawking and it was really loud, almost as loud as the helicopters!

We headed up to where the Australian animals live. Daddy and I went in to look at the Lorikeets. Mommy stayed outside (and took pictures) because she doesn't like to be in places where the birds are flying around "free" like that.

Mommy and I did ride the train ride together, though. We got to see kangaroos, dingos and wombats.

After we got off the train, Grandma took us over to a little gazebo where a lady was trying to get people to come and play instruments in and "Outback Band." She knew that I would be willing to go in and play. I got to play the washboard, and the lady got Daddy to play the washtub bass. For the next song, Grandma played the washtub bass. and I got to sing!

After the second song, we handed over our instruments to another family and went on to see some more animals. We saw a koala and a tree kangaroo.

We went on up to the top of the hill and into the primate house. We saw lots of animals and most of the monkeys were out playing today. I had fun watching them.

Some of the animals were outside today, so we went out to see them. The gorillas were actually out where you could see them today. Usually they are hiding behind a big rock. This one was actually very social, almost like he was performing for the crowd. The other one wasn't very interested in people but it was out where we could see it.

When it's less than 80 degrees out, they lock the reindeer out of the barn. When it's warmer than 80, they leave the barn open so they can go in and cool off. It was less than 80, so the barn was closed and the whole herd of reindeer were outside today.

It was really a great day to be at the zoo. Since the temperature was so nice, all of the animals were out and about. Even the bears, which are usually hiding where you can't see them, we out walking around. Last time we saw the grizzly bear, it was laying in a corner taking a nap. Today it was out taking a walk.

Even the polar bears were having fun today. This one went in for a swim while we were watching.

What a great day at the zoo!