LA Day 3

 Not to be outdone by our Disney day, on the third day of our trip, we decided to go the L.A. Zoo. Of course, this brought up a favorite song from my childhood--the Gorilla at the LA Zoo by Warren Zevon--but unfortunately no one else had heard of it. I sang it for them anyway, lucky people.

We started the day off eating breakfast out.

Here's Liora placing her order.

Telling Amity what looks good on the menu.

Then we were off to the zoo, unfortuantely minus MeMe who was home with a sick tummy. The nice thing about L.A. is that the animals can be outside year-round, so unlike the DC Zoo, there weren't a lot of houses to go in and out of, just nice paths outside.

These meerkats were much calmer than their friends at the DC Zoo.

Amity had the camera again today, so we got some nice artsy shots of the animals, and again, a lot of good photos to chronicle our trip.

Love Koalas!

We spent a lot of time watching the gorillas. They were an interesting family.

Here's the big silver back telling the younger ones what's what.

On daddy's shoulders again--viewing is better from up high.

GiGi, meet the giraffes. (Liora kept trying to get off the fence and into the enclosure.)

Giraffes, meet GiGi.

Intently watchful, with Pooh bear of course.

If this photo looks familiar, it's because we have almost the exact replica from our DC Zoo trip, where Liora was on daddy's shoulders, watching elephants, and wearing the same outfit.

After the zoo, we decided it was time to walk the two short blocks from the apartment to the ocean! By this point in the day, June gloom had burned off and it was a beautiful day. Liora took this opportunity to "sit down" wherever she could, including this person's front steps:

Then mommy and Liora went for a walk on the beach. Though Liora has seen sand before, it was a while ago--the last time she was at the beach she was 9 months old. And, we haven't yet set up our sandbox from Aunt Gabi; we're waiting until we can be back in our house. So, this was sort of a new experience. What we learned: she will adore the sandbox. It took a REALLY long time to get her to walk across the sand. She wanted to pick it up and let it fall through her hands; she wanted to throw it at me; she wanted to take off her shoes. She is her mother's daughter when it comes to many things (love of books and sweets are two things); her love of the beach can be added to that list!

MeMe and Amity certainly know our favorite things; here we are enjoying cupcakes after another yummy dinner.

p.s. A cute note about Liora. Liora has been able to say "book" for a while now, but it has always sounded more like "bo" without the "k." Now, they are very clearly "boops." She woke up this morning and smiled at me, then said: "Boop mommy! Boop!" She wanted to read books, for a VERY long time. It's funny how her favorite activities come and go; she had sort of taken a break from reading. But now she wants to read 10 at a time, and she is starting to ask for repeats. She's brilliant, of course.