Zoo Babies

Jan-Michael did not want to go to the Pittsburgh Zoo, but I've been bugging him for weeks! I heard they had baby polar bears, so I just had to go! He decided to take me for our 3 year anniversary. Even though it was a week day, the zoo was pretty crowded. It's popular! People must have been running outdoors since it has finally stopped raining. It was pretty hot and sunny, but luckily there are a lot of trees with plenty of shade. It's not a very large zoo, but it's really nice. We did everything and saw every animal, except what was over in the Kids Kingdom. The animals didn't seem to mind the heat and were out and about instead of hiding inside or in the shade (typical for animals at the Phoenix Zoo). There's the Asian Forest, where we saw all the "big kitties" (haha!), the African Savanna of zebras, giraffes and elephants, the Tropical Forest with monkeys galore, Bears with lots of um... bears!, and finally the Water's Edge where the aquarium and polar bears are. I throughly enjoyed the Water's Edge area because it had huge underwater domes to walk through. It's going to be awesome once it's all finished. They have similar things at Sea World. Unfortunately, there was only one big polar bear- I asked a zoo employee if there were baby polar bears and he said (with an Australian accent) YES but they're about 2 years old now. Apparently polar bears like to be by themselves, so if the younger boys were in the exhibit at the same time as the older bear, there would be chaos and fighting! So, the only baby polar bears I saw were the plush ones in the gift shop =p However, to my surprise, we saw a tiger cub, young gorillas, and a young giraffe. My favorite baby of the day though was baby elephant Angelina. They had "it's a girl!" signs all over near the elephant house. She was only 6 days old when we saw her. Just adorable!!! My favorite pictures of the day- a gorilla who was slouching against a wall and a bear who decided he needed to scratch his back! Jan's favorite part of the day was getting fresh french fries with cheese sauce!




After our fun day at the zoo, we headed to Station Square. Station Square has indoor/outdoor shops and restaurants. The best part though is the view of the city. We were going to eat there, but decided to leave Pittsburgh and eat at Olive Garden. We used to eat at Olive Garden a lot when it was close to my apartment in CA. But now, it's quite a drive! It was a great opportunity for us to go and use our Olive Garden gift card we got from someone as a wedding present =)

Yes I know that once you get married, most people stop celebrating their "dating anniversary" because now they have a wedding anniversary. But why not celebrate both? Both days are still important. I remember thinking how sad it would be to not celebrate July 15th anymore. Then I met a couple who has been married for over 10 years that celebrates BOTH anniversaries. How fun is that? Besides, I say we could all use an extra excuse to spend the day with our husbands, don't you?