Like the Zoo... only Scarier!

This weekend we went to Boo at the Zoo with John and Tanis and Jeremy and Crystal. I think you should expect a certain amount of tension in any park full of dangerous, caged animals, but adding Halloween to the mix only increased the excitement... I'm just glad that we didn't go after dark. Here are the characters we were with:




A witch guy (Warlock?), Bob the Builder, Jack O' Lantern, Monkey, Pirate, and an Elephant (not pictured because he was crying). Of course it is a matter of opinion, but I don't think that Ella looks very much like a pirate without her eye-patch... she could have also passed as "Aunt Jemima", "a hippy", or "Aunt Crystal as an Envorinmental Conservation student".

When we tried the hand-me-down elephant costume on Tyson at home, he threw a fit, and I was worried we would have a repeat performance when we got to the zoo; however, he really enjoyed wearing it! I think it's partly due to the fact that the other kids were wearing costumes, and partly due to the fact that as soon as we got there, he fell into a half-frozen puddle of water and soaked his other clothes. Here is a shot of him at the elephant pen, probably his favorite part of the zoo.





Interestingly, the elephant seemed to be just as impressed with Tyson as Tyson was with him. Now Tyson also drew a lot of attention at the tiger cage, but when the tiger stared at him, I got the impression that its interest wasn't motivated by a sense of kinship like the elephant's was...

It is always heartwarming to see the cousins together and my prayer is that they will always be close.





I only lamented the lack of Ella's eye-patch once, when we first got to the zoo, but Abby must have heard it because she came up to me near the end of the day and assured me that Ella really was a good pirate. She explained "uncle Chad, some pirate's don't have ipods". Well, if that's true, it sounds like a hard life indeed...

So after being in a menagerie of some of the world's most beautiful and interesting animals, how about a wildlife picture? Well, I guess I was more focused on the kids because this duck shot is the best I managed:






And this is my best dude shot of the day:





I've always felt that Halloween is a gay holiday. I mean, I have to give away my hard-earned candy to a bunch of other peoples' kids because I'm scared of getting 'tricked' if I don't. And at the same time, I'm teaching my kids to not only accept candy from strangers, but to go right up onto their front steps to do it! Christmas is my idea of a holiday, it celebrates an important event, it brings out the best in people. I mean what would be better, having the Christmas spirit in your heart all year long, or the Halloween spirit? On one hand we have the Nativity and shepherds, and angels, and tagging along, is Santa and reindeers and little elves who want to be dentists. And on the other hand what do we have? Vampires, zombies, witches, skeletons - a pretty sketchy crowd.

However, after spending some time with the cousins, I have softened a little and understand that maybe the Halloween spirit isn't only about mischief to property under the anonymity of disguise, or about pagan/satanic traditions; maybe, to this younger, daytime crowd, it's about having fun. Now, I'm actually looking forward to taking my kids up and down our street this year. All I can say is we will have to do another zoo trip at Christmas.

Until then...




don't wake the animals.


- C