Lions And Eagles And Bears, Oh My!

My mother in law was visiting this weekend, so amongst other fun things (date night, woohoo!) yesterday we decided to take everyone to the zoo. We bundled up the littlest in her polar bear coat,

and everybody else in coats and gloves and set off.

The first (and only) kink in our plans came when the weather was not the forecasted 25 degrees, but a significantly brisker 17. With a wind. But none of the a nimals are really outside this time of year anyway, so we just had to make it from one indoor exhibit to another - no biggie.

We went to the jungle

and the aquarium

This wall of silver fish in a blue tank was MESMERIZING to Beatrice. I'd wheel her up close and her legs would start waving and her legs would start kicking. So cute.

It is so fun to go to the zoo in the winter because there are hardly any other people there.  Of course, many of the animals aren't out either, but I only go to make the kids happy, and they only care about the same three things anyway, so that hardly matters.

The zoo has 5, two week old lion cubs.  Four were sleeping in this pile I barely photographed:

and the other one was nursing.  I actually took my time getting a nice, in focus, zoom shot of the nursing cub, and then another lion photobombed and walked right in front of it as I clicked the shutter.  Bummer.  They were so cute - I can't wait to go back in a couple of weeks and see them again!

After we saw the few things we wanted to see, we headed over to the IMAX theater.  Brett took the big kids in with his mom to see the movie about butterflies, but strollers aren't allowed (and yet there was no place to leave it) and Bebe is the squirmiest to hold on your lap, so I decided to just walk with her while I waited.

She was super cozy in her warm stroller muff with the sunshade pulled all the way down to block the wind, and even fell asleep for the whole 45 minutes.  I was actually pretty comfortable too - except when I was walking into the wind.  Then I was comfortable everywhere except my face which was freezing!  Next time I bring a scarf to tuck my nose into for sure.

It was really cool (no pun intended) taking a walk through the zoo when it is so cold because there was not a single other person around anywhere once I got away from the buildings.  It almost felt like I was trespassing or something.

On one side of the zoo there is a long stretch of just grass and trees, kind of like a park area, and there were all these prairie dogs there, popping up out of their holes and hooting at each other.  It was so cool, and I'm sure I never would have seen that if the zoo hadn't been so deserted.  I didn't take a picture though because my battery was almost dead.

And man am I glad I didn't waste that last 10% of battery life, because on the way home, mere blocks from our house, we saw this:

That my friends, is a fucking BALD EAGLE!  Seriously.  I guess it is somewhat normal for them to be in Nebraska, but I've certainly never seen a bald eagle just flying around or sitting in a tree.  And while I was getting the pictures of this one (oh how I wish I'd had my nice DSLR with the zoom lens), ANOTHER one flew by.

Seriously.  Two bald eagles!!  So cool.

I was so charged to see these eagles and I really hope I see more of them.  But I'm also glad it is too cold for my cat to go outside!