Hungry Hippos

At least once a week, we go to the zoo. These are pictures from such a morning. My favorite part of the zoo is the Siamang Gibbon exhibit. Once or twice a day, the gibbons start "calling" and it sounds like twelve different animals making distinctly different sounds, simultaneously. One of the calls even sounds like a woman screaming. It's really cool.

Matthew's favorite part of the zoo is that he gets to run and run and run. He does this funny thing that we call the "wind up". Every now and then, he'll just stop, head down, and contemplate the ground for a few seconds. Then, ZOOM, he's off. It's like he has his own stoplight in his head. Very cute.
Since it's now the rainy season, one of Matthew's favorite past times, outside the zoo or in, is puddle running. He could run through puddles for hours. Last night, we took him outside for the first time that day because it had been raining so hard. Dressed in his poncho and hat, he still thoroughly drenched himself by splashing in puddles for half an hour.

Sometimes, things work out with Jeff's schedule and he's able to come with us on our morning fun. He was especially fun this day at the zoo because he held Matthew up a lot so that he could see the animals. (I normally just tell him the exhibit is closed. Kidding, I'm kidding.)
Here's Matthew looking at the hippos. Did you know that hippos are disgusting? Really, really disgusting. We saw one of them poop, which was not the gross part. The gross part was when the poop, which had been floating in the water between the two hippos, "disappeared". There's a reason they call them Hungry, Hungry Hippos. Yuck.