Have you ever stroked a tiger?

  No, neither have I, it's just a sign. But I've been peed on by a tiger, I really have...not that you needed to know this. It was at the very same zoo a few years back. The tiger was pacing up and down by his fence and I walked up and down next to him, at one point he turned his bottom toward me and lifted his tail... I had a second to jump away but he still got me all over my jacket sleeve! That was a jacket I never wore again.   Anyway, this weekend we took the kids to the zoo. We went on an African safari, great fun.  

  That's the truck we drove around in. Half of the zoo has got African animals roaming around "free" in a giant habitat. Nothing too dangerous, lions and tigers were kept somewhere else. Going through the gates felt very "Jurassic park" to me. We were lucky enough to see all these beauties

The giraffes however stayed away from the truck but we did catch a glimpse of them in the distance  

Once we got off we saw Emily's favourites the meerkats. These little guys are sooooo cute.  

After we cooed over them for like half an hour Emily went into the gift shop and

bought her own toy meerkat with some of her money.

She called him "Meerkatey" and carried him around all day.

Next up we went down the primate path. We got there at just the right time to see to gorilla's being fed. There was even a little baby gorilla, so cute.

whoops, wrong photo!  

  This is better ;) See the baby climbing on it's mothers back. She's only five months old, such a cutie. We were even lucky enough to hold hands with one

This was so cool! The gorilla was hanging upside down but he kept his hand on the glass the whole time. Perfect photo opportunity!

Some more monkey friends. Quite glad they were kept at a safe distance...see the teeth on that one! Wouldn't like to get my hand stuck in that mouth.   Before we left we visited the beautiful gardens. Dylan wanted to climb walls, Emily wanted to dance.

We even had a moment of sibling "love" over sitting on a mushroom  

  And last but not least we did this  

strike a pose!   Yep, we had a good day and are planning to go back soon to see the other side of the zoo where they keep the lions and tigers and bears...oh my.