Zoo Lights

Last night, we bundled ourselves up like Nanook of the North and headed to Zoo Lights at Woodland Park Zoo. The timing couldn't have been more perfect ... we avoided rain. Need I say more?

Eric's best friend (Dave) and his daughter (Anne) joined us at the zoo, which made the outing extra fun. The kids had so much fun chasing each other, holding hands, and showing each other the neat things they saw.

We had no idea what to expect from the lights display and were thrilled by all that we saw. As soon as we entered the gates, we were greeted with falling snow thanks to the little snow machine the zoo mounted on the top of the gate. The kids had so much fun trying to catch the falling flakes. Talk about a festive and wintry way to start the zoo lights adventure!

As for the lights, the people who designed the display were very clever and creative, to say the least. We saw only a handful of animals because most areas of the zoo were off-limits during the zoo lights hours, but that was a-ok, considering how much we did see.

At one point, we came across a person dressed in a penguin suit. Anne was all about sitting with the penguin, smiling with the penguin, and dancing with the penguin. Our kids were sold on the idea until it was time to actually interact with the penguin; then they were more than happy to let Anne be in the spotlight while our kids watched from a safe distance.

Part-way through the evening, we found ourselves at the zoo's old-time carousel and OF COURSE the kids had to go for a ride. We picked out our horses and heard a chorus of Anne shouting "GO! GO! GO!" while Annika yelled "Let's GET GOING!" Once everyone was in place, away we went. Conor was less than thrilled with the idea once we were moving, but did OK.

After riding the carousel, we visited the reindeer and the remaining lights (which included a flying eagle).

By the time we wrapped up our adventure, we were all rather cold and quite tired, but it was well worth it to spend an evening taking in an impressive light display with good friends.

Catching snowflakes

This is the first display we saw .... the animal cutouts were pretty impressive

Pretty trees

This is a tree kangaroo... none of us had ever heard of this animal before;
it was happily playing with a cardboard box up in its tree

This little tree frog was on display in the the one building we went into. So cute!
(Pardon the fuzziness ... my lens fogged up going from  the from frigidly cold outside to the humid reptile building)

Light tiger
(My lens was still foggy from the temperature change... sorry!)

Eric and Dave ... two great dads!
If you look closely, you can see that Anne and Annika (on the guys' shoulders) are holding hands

Adventurous Anne and the penguin

The three amigos

Giraffe at the watering hole

Hippo at the watering hole

Conor waiting for the carousel to start

Anne yelling "GO! GO! GO!" at the carousel operator

Anne and Dave on the carousel
(This picture is actually their reflections in the mirror that is in the center of the carousel)

Conor and me on the carousel

Yes! There were reindeer for us to see. Hurray!

Zoo Lights + Moon Light