Nursing Gorillas

Today we went to the zoo. My daughter's father lives in the big city, so once a month she has visitation there. We have a zoo membership and typically go when we drop Aris off. Today Aris wanted to come with us, so we met her dad there. It was a good day.

I really love going to the zoo. In the beginning, I really didn't think I would. But as I've learned more about the zoo, the more I love going. We've had a membership for about 3 years now. Each visit something new stands out to me. We never have the same favourite moment. Today there were a lot of good moments. The tree kangaroos were the most active we've ever seen them. Steve and Aris got great pictures. Then we were off to the African Pavillon where there is a baby gorilla. He/she is soo cute! He is much bigger than he was the last time we saw him. Before he was still a newborn and did a lot of sleeping. Today he was riding on his mother's back and getting into mischief. I got several good pictures of him nursing. :) The other gorillas were more active than usual. They had just been given some new enrichment activities, including jars of peanut butter and celery sticks. Aris took a video of a gorilla scraping out the peanut butter with his stick of celery. These were good moments to share.

In the Americas Pavillon, there is a giant alligator snapping turtle. He's massive and typically doesn't do much. But today he was watching us. I watched his eyes track my movements and then he lifted his head and opened his mouth. Steve got to see him try to climb up a little. I didn't get to see that, but I did watch him for about 10 minutes. Such a little thing, but it made me very happy. :)

And also in the list of things that made me happy today; Canada won the gold medal in curling!! I watched the very first game between Canada and Norway, and then got to see them play in the gold medal game. That was pretty cool! Now on to hockey...Go Canada! :)