Annie!!!!!1

Annie aka Manny aka Mangela came to visit me! And on the exact day she arrived, my mom bought a ticket down to see me in a couple of weeks! Family is the best.

 

Annie: Do you ever brush Penny?

Me: Yeah, like once a week.

Annie: What type of brush do you use? Metal or bristle?

Me: Metal. [five second pause] Do you want to brush her?

Annie: ...sorta.

 

 

 

Her first day here we went to the Wildlife World Zoo. IT. WAS. AMAZING. You should go. My boss has been encouraging me to go for months since she knows how much I love animals, and it did not disappoint. I've never been to a zoo like that before, where you could get so close and interact with so many of the animals. They were the most active zoo animals I've ever seen, too. It wasn't as pretty as the Phoenix zoo, but I loved it twice as much. You'll see why.

 

I took like a thousand pictures and videos, and please appreciate how hard it was to pare them down to these 20-odd ones, thanks.

Baby white tiger. RIGHT THERE. SO CLOSE.

Yawning baby jaguar

 

Playing with Jon through the glass.

 

 

FEEDING LORIES. This was the best day of Annie's life. We were at the zoo long enough to catch both feedings, a few hours apart.

 

It had just flung apple in her face.

 

Birdhead.

 

Don't mind the bits of apple on my head. It happens when birds clean their appley beaks in your hair.
 

Jon was there.
 

Annie being snuffled by a baby tapir! This picture and the next two kill me.

 

How do you do?

So freaking awesome. We were at this station for...45 minutes? Hard to say. I lost track of time.

 

Jon was there.

 

Those are my feet, that's a three foot high barrier, and that's a porcupine. They really put a lot of trust in their patrons.

 

ZOMG. So the bird guy recognized us at both lory feedings and invited us to this turaco feeding. These birds looked like cartoons. They weren't as friendly as the lories, but I liked them more.

Unpictured from our day at Wildlife World: the stingray tank. I can definitively say that of all zoo visitors that day, we spent the most time at the ray tank. I bought a cup of shrimp pieces for three bucks so we could feed them, which was startling and borderline painful. The guy kept saying "They don't have teeth, they have PLATES" but they felt and acted like teeth, so.

The next day we left early morning for the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, which was as fantastic as ever, and hit BK, Frost Gelato, and Wheel Donuts on the way home. Sonoran hot dogs...drool. It was Annie's first taste and she said they were worth the wait.
 

Lunch the next day at Postino. Paninis and creme brulee. Drool.
 

At church. Sister wives!! Don't worry, we only went to Sacrament meeting ('vacation rules').

 

Other things from the trip, unpictured: Potato tacos, a tour of my office, Tokyo Lobby for sushi, hot tubbing at my aunt's house, coconut shrimp from "China Super Buffet" (lately it's been a weekly occurance. Nomfest), dog park/walk, a pee-diaper flopped on the Mazda's side view mirror (we love our neighbors!), Nordstrom Last Chance, pho, fondue, and the movie theater to see Warm Bodies (second viewing for all involved. I LOVE THAT MOVIE).

 

 

I decided it was easier to put the zoo movies at the end. The first one sums up the lory feeding in 6 concise seconds. Annie and I shuffling along hoping for birds, Annie expressing her love, bird flitting away unexpectedly. It was supposed to be a Vine video, looping infinitely, but Vine SUCKS and my videos only work half of the time.

Videos on Vine:
Tiny Baby Monkey Leaping at Me
A Very Diplomatic Giraffe



kthxbai