Are you surprised we're giraffe harassers? You shouldn't be.

So mostly we've been feeling sickly and staying at home for the bulk of February, which has led to my posting slack. I love having a cold, then something else on top of it. And is it just me, or does this wicked respiratory thing going around seem to hang on forever?

Anyway, in between bouts of not feeling so well (with and without evidence), sneezing up a lung or two, and disinfecting the house in time to start the whole process over, we've managed to squeeze in a couple of outings on warmer days. Our first real outing in February was a trip to the zoo.

To some degree, it was a great idea. It was a warmer day, the sun was shining, and both parents were on scene (most importantly present was dad, because as I have mentioned before, he is the fun one). On the other hand, it's February. There was no one there, most of the animals were inside, and they actually still had a good portion of the lights from Zoo Lights up because they are running on minimal staff. These things were both good and bad.

By bad, I mean bad for the poor, pent up giraffes. There was a little girl in their house at the same time we were who was teasing them a little with a stick of some kind. I think she honestly intended to feed it to them, but her mom put the brakes on that plan. Instead, we got many looks at that freaky, long tongue. I think Jean Simmons may have been a giraffe in a former existence or something.

Alan took a more humane approach, and just reached out to pet the same adventurous giraffe. I'm not sure if the zoo approves of this behavior or not, but the giraffe was friendly and now Alan can say he has pet (petted?) one, as well as being taken to ride an elephant on another, much younger trip to the zoo. There are certainly a few odd things he can cross off his life "to do" list! I'm okay with just taking the pictures of him doing it. (Someone remind me at some point to post the picture of him jumping in the lake in Hawaii that appeared to be barely above freezing temperature.)

We also had the shocking realization that Mason is an almost full-pricedpatron of the zoo since turning 3 last month. It would cost $22 for admission for our little family. So we decided, since we make many treks per year to the zoo, that it was time to invest in a membership. We go with the three of us at least the three times it will take to pay for itself, plus we got the one with a guest attached for days when I go solo/with another adult. Mason's big interest of the day was looking down all the grates. We felt it was worth the gas money and cost of admission to look down some different storm drains than the ones on our street.

(And please don't forget, he constantly asks me "What's down there?"--I'm running out of creative answers, so if you have suggestions, let me know. If I tell him it's water or melting snow, he just asks again until I say something else.)