on sunday, before making the long drive back to minneapolis, we made one more three-year old birthday pitstop at the great plains zoo.

when you first enter you get to see all of the animals standing completely still. how nice of them. better for photographing.

i liked this wall. who wants to help me paint a wall in my crafting room with this sort of scene?

hannie is a silly monkey.

they’re just playing.

monkey pile!

such a fashionable little fish.

karyn was eaten by a hippo before we even got to see any moving animals. tragic!

ok, enough of this. real animals, please!

the first animal we saw outside was a peacock and this is about all that i remembered from the zoo when i first visited a million years ago.

the alpaca was the most apprehensive.

after hannie rode the carousel (the first time), i had to go look at most of the african animals alone. because she wanted to keep riding the carousel.

lazy cheetahs! very boring.

this is the baby rhino that, at one point, hannie was excited about. before the carousel happened.

hannie’s last ride on the carousel was with me. honestly? i got kinda dizzy.

i like lemurs because they look like cats with even crazier eyes.

we ended our visit with the asian kitties. and there was one i’ve never seen before: pallas’ cat! adorable.

he was a little bigger than a house cat and he was all chatter-y and chirp-y. wanted to bring him home!

and i thought about him the whole way home to minneapolis. (not really) (maybe)