Portland Zoo

Last Sunday, when our family had fully recovered from the flu, we headed to the Portland Zoo. We met our friends, Ben and Alli, and their little boy, Clark, as well as Doug and Vanessa. Doug, Ryan (he had a sleep-over the night before at Uncle Doug's), and Vanessa met us at our apartment so that we could take the MAX to the zoo (as per Ryan's request).

Ryan sleeping in his fort at Doug and Vanessa's

When we arrived at the zoo, Ryan and Uncle Doug saw these two bears and had to have a picture with them. I don't know if Doug or the bears are bigger. Either way, I love this picture.

Next, we walked through the Pacific Northwest area of the zoo. The greenery was beautiful. Phil captured this great shot of the trees.

Doug and Vanessa

Ryan crawling through a log

Next we saw some turtles, ducks, and frogs. Clark was checking everything out through the glass. I love this picture with Clark's reflection.

Ben was helping Ryan see the animals

Phil and I realized that we only have two pictures of the 4 of us and decided that the zoo was a great place for a family photograph. As you can tell by Ryan's squirming and expression, he did not really agree.

Ryan and Jack loved the petting zoo and tractor the most. I think it felt the most like home. I love this moment of Ryan giving Jack a hug, although I'm sure seconds after this picture was snapped, Jack started squealing because Ryan was holding him too tight.

The boys liked the goats so, so much. Unfortunately, I've been fighting blogger to upload these pictures for days, and for whatever reason, it didn't like the goat pictures. Ryan wants us to get a goat if we ever move to the country. He also wants us to get a baby tiger and a giraffe for our country home.

In the petting zoo

The zoo also had a dinosaur exhibit going on. We didn't pay extra to go through it because the boys overwhelmed enough with the regular zoo. Ryan really liked that there were dinosaurs all over the zoo and wanted to know how we could make them un-extinct.

The elephant in the Asia exhibit was next. I love elephants. They look so gentle, even though they are huge.

Next, we went to the Africa exhibit and saw the lions. They were gorgeous. There were several female lions and one beautiful male lion.

Ryan found this safari jeep and loved it, of course. He could have stayed there a lot longer.

After the giraffe and the Africa exhibit, Jack had fallen asleep and Ryan was seconds away from a meltdown since we were a good 2 hours past nap time. On the way out, we saw the Lorikeet exhibit and knew we had to stop there. Ryan and I had been to a Lorikeet exhibit with Malisa when we went to South Carolina, but Ryan didn't remember it. We bought the little juice cups and headed in to feed the birds.

Jack wanted to grab the birds in the worst way so we had to constantly convince him that he just needed to look. Ryan immediately found a little bird friend that started drinking from his juice cup. He accidentally spilled it and tried desperately to fight of the tirade of tired tears that had built up from not napping. Finally they overwhelmed him and he fell on the ground and sobbed. I dashed out to the nice man at the juice cup booth, got him another cup, and in no time, Ryan and his bird friend were fast friends again.

I love Ryan peering over the top of his glasses in this picture

The Lorikeets were our last stop before catching the MAX and heading home. We had a great time and hope to go back again on our next visit. Portland was a great vacation for us and I feel like we only got a taste of the city. With so many of our friends now living in the area, we hope we have many excuses to go back.