Virginia Zoo!

Sarah has been asking for a few months to be able to see elephants.  well, since there are no zoos around us that currently have elephants, as soon as we found out that the Virginia zoo had them, we quickly added a zoo trip to our vacation!  (Which then made Chris get a fabulous idea that we should visit 50 zoos, one in each state!  So stay reading our blog to see all the zoos that visit over the next several years!)

Look who was at the entrance to the zoo!

Can you spot both monkeys?

I see another monkey!

Dave and Sarah getting an up-close view of the orangoutang.

A red panda taking a snooze in the tree.

The world's largest crane.

And the giant pigs were napping on the this hot day.

Black bears.

The tiger was cooling off in his pool!

Zebras.

We spotted this little guy trying to hide.

Mom and baby giraffe.  This little giraffe is only about a month tall.  His great grandfather is the world's largest giraffe.  The zoo keeper told us that they believe this baby will be giving his great grandfather a run for his money, he was born taller then a typical giraffe!

And the main reason for coming to the zoo, ELEPHANTS!

We got to watch him try to cool off with a dust bath.

"ELEPHANTS!!"

Enjoying some hay.

Dave checking out a large lizard.

Meer-cat.

Parie dogs.

A monkey family.

Ant eater.

And cows!  

On our drive back to the hotel we were rather close to the Virginia Navel Base, so we were able to see a few big Navy ships.

And the kids had a grand time going through this rather large tunnel.

When we got back to the hotel we thought we would check out hte gift shops in the hotel.  This was the way they walked to and from the water park each night.

We got meet one of the Great Wolf Lodge characters.  (Sarah wanted nothing to do with getting her picture taken with this nice wolf.)

And if you recall we had spotted a lizard at Busch Gardens yesterday, WELL....See this little lizards above!  We were all meeting up in our room to head to the water park.  Next thing we know Big Dave is chasing something in our hotel room.  He was after this lizard!  He must have snuck in our room from our porch at some point.  Thanks Dave for catching this guy for us.....it would have been something to find him in our bed!