Sunday, July 20, 2014

Real Life Rio

I dearly wish I had a four hour chunk of uninterrupted personal time to go through all of our trip photos and compose a delightfully entertaining and witty blogpost.

Alas, I don't.  So instead, I'll toss out a few pictures from the quick zoo trip that we took right before leaving.  I absolutely love living close enough to the zoo to visit frequently.  Not only do we get mega-mileage out of our annual pass, but it's delightful to drop by for an hour or two, catching just a few animals of interest at a time.

This time, our trip through the "Garden of the Senses" prepped us to watch Rio 2, which happened to be our in-flight entertainment.

Lest ye mistake this fella for Blu, he's actually an indigo macaw.  His trainer told me how blue macaws are indeed far scarcer.  According to the bird man, the movie Rio has an element of truth to it.  They did try to mate a blue macaw raised in captivity with a wild partner.  Alas, in the real story the match-making was unsuccessful.

Here are Brooklyn and Talia pictured with "Goobers." Love the name!

This bird's far too pretty to be Nigel, the evil cockatoo.
Of course, it only seemed appropriate to prep the kids for some of the actual wildlife they would encounter on their trip.  This California sea lion may be big, but he's nowhere near as large as Woody, the 2200 pound Steller sea lion we would later meet.


Hey look, Brooklyn's riding a giraffe!
Talia naturally wanted a turn as well...

...as did Eli.  Here's our handsome fella the day before his hair got chopped.  I kind of miss those long beachboy locks!
The giraffe reminds me of a funny story.  A while back (long before Annie Mae was even a dream), Callie and Adam gave us three whimsical pieces of art from their local Art Fest.  They now hang on our kitchen wall where they lovingly represent our three oldest children.


This probably explains Eli's remark: "When Brooklyn grows up, she's going to be a giraffe.  I'm going to be a turtle.  But Talia's going to be a MONSTER!"

3 comments:

Callie said...

Ooo - Irony!
We learned the Northwest artist from whom we purchased the munckins “portraits” isn’t coming to our local Anacortes ArtsFest this year - so we finally went online last night and scrolled through her many prints to purchase miss Annika Mae’s alter ego. It’s being sent to Mom and Dad and will hopefully arrive while I’m in town in a few weeks.
I didn't let Adam select one for Bump yet, though - preferring instead to let her own little personality drive the decision making. Based on last night’s hunger pangs and refusal to let me sleep - I think she may end up as a shark. Love you all!

Kara said...

Love it, Callie, love it! Can't wait for Annie's big reveal--and Bump's too. :)

Julie L said...

What fun! I am amazed at your ability to compare and recall! Great photos! I would have been home pulling my hair out trying to finish laundry and packing - I do everything way too last minute. And here you were creating additional memories to begin the vacation with! Hooray!