Weeks 13 & 14- The Zoo

I might be getting the exact facts wrong, but did you know that the gestation period for a pregnant peacock is two years? Or that the African elephant can leap distances up to 30 feet? How about the fact the alligators can have up to 7,800 teeth in their mouth?

These are the things were learned on Lily’s first trip to the zoo. Our friend Whittney (who is married to our friend Brett) is one of the directors of Hogle Zoo…or maybe one of the owners…I can’t remember, and she got us free tickets to attend the opening of the new White Alligator Exhibit.

So there are only ten of these Alligators in the entire world and they just brought one to the Hogle Zoo for the summer. They are completely white except that they have blue eyes which means that they are not albino. Lily loved looking in at the alligator…probably because it reminded her of her dad who has white hair and blue eyes and is also not an albino.

Lily was also able to get up close and personal with a pygmy alligator (they have a rare form of dwarfism that constricts their growth to one foot in length). Lily got too close and the alligator bit off her ear. Luckily we were ably to slice open the gators gut and get the ear back and then we used leaches to get the ear to reattach…it sounds like a bigger deal than it really was.

The whole zoo experience was excellent I would highly recommend going…especially if you haven’t been since 9^th grade Zoo Day. As a way of thanking Whittney and Brett (and in response to blog reader request) I have included like 40 pictures of the adorable little couple below.

Lily continues to do great. We have been putting her on her stomach for a few minutes each day to get her used to it, but up until last week, she has spent most of the time with her face planted into the ground and quickly getting ticked off. But last Friday, for the first time, she started to push off the ground with her arms and lifting her head. It’s pretty dang cute and I’ll try to get some video of it for the next post.

She is also still figuring out her voice. What started as an occasional coo has escalated into a full on coo fest. She can go on for an hour making almost nonstop noises…not mad or sad noises…just noises. It’s pretty fun to listen to unless there is something good on TV and then we just put her downstairs.

Below are a bunch of pictures that we took over the last couple of weeks. A bunch of them we taken at a graduation/going away party for our friends Katya and PJ who are moving to Dallas (even though the Mavs just got eliminated from the playoffs). Katya and I got to be friends when I was serving my LDS (you know…the Mormons) mission in the Baltics. It was pretty cool for me to think back to the first time I met her in Daugavpils, Latvia, and then five years later, be in Provo, Utah celebrating her graduation from BYU. I’m glad that Lily was able to meet her and PJ and I hope that the next time she meets them, it won’t be at her wedding or something. It was also great to be with the parents of my good friend Peter and have them meet Lily. I know you already have grandkids of your own, but you can be Lily’s third set of grandparents if you want.

The other pictures are of Lily with her great grandma Madge and Lily with the bow down over her eyes which happens 3 or 4 times a day.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures.

Flash Slideshow