San Diego Zoo and Halloween

There is a series of these pictures and I think Jilly and Ben were having a staring contest. They get pretty intense, and Jilly wins half the time. Evelyn can't keep a straight face for more than 10 seconds, and Gordon can't focus on anything for that long without moving. 

 Headed to the ward Trunk or Treat with their neighbor/sister. These four hang out all the time. 

 We bought pumpkins to carve, and you can guess which one is Jilly's (the smallest!). She wanted to make a pumpkin family. The fabric comes from my scrap stash. 

 There was a pumpkin carving party in our apartment complex, so we took our pumpkins down there. Evelyn got creative and actually rode on her pumpkin, all the way down the hill. Sort of like Cinderella. 

 Candy accounting time. I was on call in the apartment complex, so Ben was the one taking them around this year. 

Our good friends and next door neighbors, the Whites, have San Diego Zoo passes and invited us to go along on a school holiday in October. It was "bring a friend day" or something, and so we got in free. Friends are cool! 

 This was in the koala exhibit. There is a lot of stuff to climb on at the Zoo, so it's perfect for kids. That's also why it can take you two days to get through everything. 

 Notice Jill's grumpy face. She didn't get her picture first. 

 Pretending to be a member of the sea ice community. 

 Jilly found a baby!

 Gordon and his buddy talked repeatedly about seeing the crocodiles, and toward the end of the day, we did see them. Other notable exhibits were the pandas, koalas, and elephants. We saw the lions too (surprisingly stinky!) and they were just asleep, which made sense when I remembered they sleep during the heat of the day. The reptile house was fun for the little ones too. 

The best story from the trip came from the Orangutan/Chimpanzee exhibit. The orangutan was doing a funny dance on a rock with the gourd in his hand and keeping the people entertained. Then he started banging the gourd on the rock. There are high glass walls to separate the people from the chimps. Once he was done banging the gourd, he looked at it, and then lobbed the gourd over the wall into the crowd. It landed right behind the kids and didn't hit anyone, thankfully. A man threw it back over the wall. The kids started laughing, they thought it was great.