Chocolate at the Zoo

October 28 was National Chocolate Day. What a great day for dressing up in costume and going trick or treating at Hogle Zoo. They had stations throughout the zoo where the kids could get candy.

 

The animals even had Halloween enrichment objects. It was fun to see.

 

Of course we had to get some pictures with the gorilla statue and the lion drinking fountain.

 

It was a nice trip to the zoo.

Oh, I Did

Oh, I did put up a post in October. I thought I had gone the whole month without getting a post up.

Oh, there's so much to catch up on. Sigh. The longer I go, the harder it is to catch up.

Oh well. Here's a picture of mountains and the sky. Not our view down in Utah County. This is taken right outside the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City.

Rationalizing Not Taking Pictures (with some pictures thrown in)

February 23 was National Rationalization Day which is why I can rationalize not taking pictures on that day, even though the kids had chili and toast for National Chili Day and National Toast Day. I didn't have chili and toast. I went to a Relief Society dinner and had Cafe Rio food instead.

I can also rationalize not having pictures for other days. February 26 was For Pete's Sake Day. I used that phrase.

February 27 was International Polar Bear Day and National Pokemon Day. I told my son to clean up his Pokemon figures and we watched some Pokemon type videos. I learned some polar bear facts from Hogle Zoo Instagram page and we watched an episode of The Mysterious Benedict Society (which has a polar bear illustration in the opening credits).

And while I'm in the mood for rationalizing, here are some pictures I took on different days.

We've been having a real Winter. The kids had another actual snow day, which just means nowadays that they do school online at home instead of having a day off. The kids and I decided to go to the library that evening and since the red car was parked behind the van, we had to clean snow off both vehicles in order to get the van out of the driveway. Luckily it was flat surfaces all the way to the library. 

We spent maybe an hour at the library but by the time we got back to the van, it had to have snow cleared off it again.

We celebrated Jeremy's birthday.

Fall Break 2022

Fall Break: Hiking (Big Springs)

Fall Break: Dead things (Bean Museum)

Fall Break: Scarecrow Festival (Thanksgiving Point)

Fall Break: Date, Live music (My niece, Carina, performing with my sister and brother-in-law in attendance)

Fall Break: Live animals (Hogle Zoo)

Crush a Can, Save a Sloth

September 27 was Crush a Can Day.

I learned from Hogle Zoo's Instagram page the "correct" way to crush a can. 

I also learned from them that recycling helps to save sloth habitats.

So...

Crush a Can

Save a Sloth

But only if you recycle it as well.

Hogle Zoo

I'm pretty sure the last time we went to Hogle Zoo was when Jr. was little, before Jr. Jr. was born, before I had started this blog. I remember my in-laws taking us and yep... I just found pictures from that trip from 2009. This is going to be fun.

 

First of all, the lion drinking fountain. I remember coming to Utah to visit relatives when I was a kid and we all went to Hogle Zoo. One thing I remember was the lion drinking fountain... from when I was a kid. Obviously it's had some changes to it over the years (compare 2009 to 2022) but the lion drinking fountain is a thing that has been around for many years.

Next let's talk about the gorilla statue. I don't remember it from my childhood. I do remember it from when Jeremy and I were dating and when we were first married and when we had just one child. I'm not putting the effort into finding those pictures but it is tradition (from even before we were married) to get a family picture with the gorilla statue. So I have pictures again from 2009 and 2022 to compare.

 

We had a great time this trip seeing a lot of animals. And just because I can, here is a comparison picture of an elephant from 2009 and from 2022.

Jet had fun flapping his ears like the elephant.

 

We saw a gorilla taking a drink so Jet decided to take a drink at the same time.

 

Because we are Dino Dan/Dino Dan: Trek's Adventures/Dino Dana fans (it's an Amazon Prime Video thing. Look it up), when it was time to move on to a new area of the zoo, we would say, "And we're moving," because that's what Dan and Trek's grandma would say when they visited the zoo and later a reptile house with Dana. When they were at the reptile area, they talked about how the crocodiles were like Deinosuchus, so when we saw crocodiles at Hogle Zoo, I kept telling Jet about them being like Deinosuchus. You know that kid likes dinosaurs (and prehistoric reptiles).

  

It was a fun trip to the zoo. We didn't see everything because it was getting hotter and hotter (It's been a hot Summer) and we decided to go home after a while, but it was awesome.

And I'm so glad we were able to get our family picture with the gorilla statue.