Last Stop...The Zoo/Aquarium!!

The day we left, we decided to make a stop in Tacoma at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. If you're ever in the area, I recommend this place! It was decent priced and had LOTS to do! Fortunately, Ron's mom was able to come too and spend one last day with us, and then just headed back up as we headed down south.

While we were buying tickets, Michael had to go to the bathroom, so the lady gave us our tickets real quick and I rushed him to the restroom. When we came out, we were greeted by this guy!

Emma decided to chase him around and backed him up into a corner....

....so he did this! We found out that they had a whole bunch of peacocks throughout the park. It was pretty cool to see them walking around with their pretty feathers!

First stop: The Lemurs! this little guy is a black lemur that was just kinda hanging out....

....while his cousins were all huddled up on the rock trying to stay warm! (And yes, we sang the "I like to move it move it" song!)

Grandma & Emma in the birds nest.

A cute little meerkat. He looks a little sad :o(

A wall of cockroaches....Gross!

Wallaby

They had a mock vetrinary office that the kids could play with.

We went to look at the elephants and I didn't even notice until my MIL said something, but I look over and saw this....(Enter your own thoughts here______)

And here's the exhibit we WANTED to see!

We found these glasses....."I'm too sexy for my shades!"

About 3 weeks prior to our visit, this mama tiger gave birth to a couple of baby cubs! They didn't have them out to where you could see them in person, but they had monitors on her. The daddy tiger was out and we could see him, however, he was pretty far back to get a picture and when we were there, one of the trainers came out to talk about them and answer questions and he said that they just recently found out that the daddy had a massive tumor which was causing some breathing problems. They started him on chemo treatments, and it seems to be helping, but they don't think it's curing. The tumor has shrunk immensely, but everything was still up in the air. He also mentioned that this particular breed (the Sumatran) is slowly depleeting and there are only a few left. They are trying to breed them using the ones that are already in zoos, but that is an iffy situation. At one point they tried to breed this female with the brother of the daddy and he tried to kill her. So anyway, they're really cute and it was interesting to learn about them.

Also new at the zoo were these cute Clouded Leopards. There were 2 of them, but when we got there, it was feeding time, and they fed them seperate. But after lunch, they had them both in there playing with the trainers. They were like oversized cats with giant paws. But, they don't get very big.

A cute little river otter!

This monkey just looked so sad. We decided he looked a little like grandpa smeesh! ;o)

These monkeys were "relaxing in style"

Sea Horses! (I thought they looked pregnant!)

The touch pools.

Sea Otters

These sea lions were so funny! They would swim toward the glass on it's back until it looked like he was going to hit it, and then he would flip on his stomach, swim to the other side of the pool, swim up and lift out of the water, and then swim towards us on his back again! He did that over and over and over!

A giant walrus! He was huge!

When we went to the car, there were peacocks in the parking lot! And they like Cheeze-Its!