Tierpark Hellabrunn

One look at the forecast for the next several days (varies between showers and thunderstorms) and I just knew we needed to get out of the apartment TODAY.

So...we went to the zoo!  But this isn't just any old zoo.  It is more like a wildlife preserve with large enclosures and an abundance of animals.  I was amazed at just how close we could get to the animals!  Because their goal is to create a holistic habitat, single species are rarely found in one enclosure.  Instead 2, 3 or more types of animals (that would be found living at peace in the wild together) are in one enclosure, allowing us to get a better picture of how these species live and share the world together.  Very cool!

We started off with the flamingos...

 And in VERY random order, you'll see just a snip it of the animals we saw (with a few pics of the girls thrown in).

 (Val loved watching the tortoises eat a HUGE salad for lunch - see pic above.  While Kate just wanted to take some of her own pictures - see pic below.)

Kate's favorite was "everything!" because that kid has such a great heart, everything pleases her. (But to me, it seemed she was particularly in awe of the elephants.  We got to watch - with a difficult view due to the amount of people - the elephant show so she saw them doing a couple of tricks and a guy riding one.)

Val's favorite started out with the otters, moved to the bats until she got a bit scared because one flew literally over her head, then on to the tiger because of its really cool stripes, and ended with the lemur because she has a stuffed animal of one from a zoo back home (home being the one in Bothell).  Remembering her stuffed animal at home brought the tender-hearted girl to tears because she was reminded of all the stuffed animals she left at home (cruel mom only let her bring 2 of them).  Then she remembered all of her friends back home, and her cousins, grandparents, etc.  It was several minutes of tears and comforting before we could move past the grief and onto the adventures again.

Valerie often "wears her emotions on her sleeve" and I can hardly blame her.  I'm actually amazed at how well all of these girls have thrived through our transitions.  And a few tears every now and then are okay.  They show me her sensitive heart and mirror my own longings for the comfort of familiarity and "home."  But she is adventurous too.  She is strong and full of life.  So once the tears dried, we giggled over some silly monkeys using their feet to carry sticks as they swung across ropes and bamboo, then we picked out some postcards - one to keep and one to send to a friend.  And we smiled on our 50 minute walking/bus/tram commute home - to our apartment, where several new friends have returned from vacation and invited the girls out to play for the rest of the afternoon.

All in all - a wonderful partly cloudy/partly sunny day before the thunderstorms and rain showers come again tomorrow! :)