close encounters of the animal kind

Earlier this week, my friend and I drove our kids up to a zoo in Madison, WI. The zoo is free, so we felt it was well worth the drive. The kids got up close with so many animals. It was Grant's first experience with such proximity. I think we had seen three or four animals before he made the connection that these were the real versions of the animals he has been admiring in his books for so long. It was like a little light lit up in his head. Suddenly he was pointing and jabbering about everything.

His hand stayed fixed in this position most of the day after his 'aha' moment.

I've got multiple shots of this tiger stare-down. The tiger kept pacing back and forth across that window. He would yawn and show all his teeth and he kept licking his chops. It must have been lunch time. Gracie interpreted the look to mean that the tiger really wanted to play tag with her. I told her it meant something like that. 

I just love how Gracie gets this completely crazy look in her eyes when she gets really excited about something. This shot reminded me of this one taken on new year's eve. And the lone bow in her hair- she found it in the car and insisted on wearing it.

The zoo has a huge playground with a jungle gym- a very jungly one at that- and a carousel. This is where we ended our day. Gracie made about 500 runs down the twisty green slide, and Grant even found a little slide that he could climb up to and go down all by himself.