We Fought (at) A Zoo

The weather was finally nice enough to go to the zoo again. It's sad to see Ethan getting big enough that although he still likes the animals, the other stuff doesn't see quite so fun.
He does not seem thrilled to have to put his face in an animals...

 or measure his arms/wingspan...

or pose at the petting zoo...

The girls are still having a blast driving their invisible horses at the playground though.  I still have some little ones...

 

...at least for a little while longer.

Although he doesn't seem to have liked it much when he was 3 either:

Raccoon Meet Casey, Casey Meet Raccoon

It is a big family joke that our dog (my parents dog), Casey, is a little on the... rotund side. Okay, the dog is just plain obese. Everyone can see it, everyone but my dad. For some reason my dad seems to think that Casey is just "fluffy." He is a golden retriever, so there is a fluff factor, but there is also the "belly fat bigger than my 3 year old" factor. If you ever watch a dog show you will see a fine specimen of a golden retriever. Times that by 2 and you will have how wide Casey is. Why is this important? It isn't, really, but when we went to the zoo we found Casey's soul mate:I wasn't sure if it really was a raccoon or a mutant raccoon/grizzly bear hybrid (the bottom half being the grizzly). You may think I am exaggerating, but in this picture he looks svelte compared to how he looked in real life! In fact as we walked through out the zoo I noticed a running theme. It seems our animals are all a little overfed. If they ever need a golden retriever I know one that will fit right in!

We also took the obligatory "how big is your wing span" pic: and to give you an idea how long we have been taking these (and how many I have now) here is our official first wing picture after we moved here: Yes, that is Ella! Ethan wouldn't do it for some reason.