Katie and meercat

The meercat was one of the kids' favorite animals at the zoo. They are hilarious when they stand up on their two little legs and stretch up tall. The zoo folks call this "guard duty" and just makes them look too cute. 

Colin on his mighty eagle

I can't remember the eagle's name. Aisha or something like that? Apparently the names were all selected by other kids. Not sure, but I suspect it was a sponsorship opportunity. 

Katie and Braveheart

Katie insisted on riding the merry-go-round and picked Braveheart the Lion as her steed. She was so taken with the name Braveheart that she named a duck that we got at Legoland the lion. Well, at least in part. The duck's official name, we think, is Lily Braveheart Splash Battle Pirate Duck. 

Poor panda

Katie loved having her picture taken with the dress-up animals, including this panda. We felt very sorry for the poor person inside since it was sweltering. But to their credit, they still put on a perky personality for the kids. 

I want to ride, mommy!

Yup, once Katie saw this, her mommy was done for. :-) 

Measuring up

Here are Colin and Katie measuring themselves against a gorilla. We were lucky enough to see two baby gorillas riding on their mommys' backs. Unfortunately, this gave Katie the idea that she wanted to be just like the baby gorilla, so she pressed mom into service as a beast of burden later that day. "Don't drop me, mommy!" she would command from her piggyback position.

Interestingly, gorilla are just like human parents. One of the frequent zoo visitors explained to me that one of the mommy gorillas was a first time parent, and coddled her baby exactly like you'd expect a first-time parent to coddle. The second-time mommy was much more cavalier and almost seemed to want the baby to get off her back when she got in the way of foraging for food. 

Cool sculptures outside the Birch Aquarium

The kids had a great time at the Birch Aquarium on the UCSD campus. They had a cool water table where you could channel water to see how currents affected boats floating on the surface, a DNA game modelled on Dance Dance Revolution, and a fabulous tide pool.

Colin didn't quite get the message to turn Cameron around for the picture. 

Ahoy, mateys!

We spent the last week in San Diego, madly dashing from one attraction to the other. The kids did admirably, all things considered. Here are the two olders ones posing in front of a sailing ship in the San Diego Harbor.

Poor Cameron came down with roseola early in the week. He's past the fever and is now sporting the not-too-attractive rash. Don't worry: no pictures. 

9 months of gestation in 20 seconds

I'm pretty sure Fedora would not have been into posing every other day through her entire pregnancy. But someone had both the foresight and the patience, and now we get to see the entire gestation in 20 seconds.

(I didn't embed the video just in case some of you might find it just a touch too revealing.)