The Ryan's: The Ryan Family Zoo Adventure

All of the Ryan family got together this past weekend and enjoyed going to the zoo on what we collectively decided HAD to have been the most popular day of the year! Not only were there a million people there, but we took like half a million. You should have seen our big-ole clan walking around, squeezing through to the "good" spots- It was quite a site! Not only was it Tom, Lula, their four kids (Jonathan was the lone missing soul) and their respective families, but Christa and Jason brought two friends and their two kids. Jeremy brought his girlfriend Brittany and my sister Ashley joined in for good measure. We had a ball!

CLICK HERE to see all of the million pics (yet again, I'm praising the Lord that I was born in the age of DIGITAL photography and didn't have to pay to DEVELOP all of these! :)

And of course, my favorites:

Do please note the sunglasses on Will and Benson. Will wore his really cute kid-sized sunglasses to the zoo- Benson borrowed Aunt Ash's Gi-normous Audrey Hepburn-sized sunglasses to be cool like his big cousin.

So much fun!

I think Benson was saying "Don't poop on me.. Don't poop on me!"

There's a monkey in the bird cage! See him going "ooo ooo oo!"

Hannah was really brave when it came to feeding the Lorikeets!

Sweet family time...

I'm telling ya.. this girl loves her some Lorikeets!

The whole fam! Thomas, Hannah, Addie Grace and Susie! I think they are the most photogenic family ever!

Looking at the "go-go's" with aunt ash...

The giraffe's weren't interested in visiting with us. Despite Ash's "business face" (She's the one in the background sticking her arm out) and clicking calls, they didn't come over.. AND, the baby giraffe wasn't out. Quite disappointing I must say!

This ride looks like fun!

So we're looking at the elephants and all the babies are interested in is pushing the buttons on the coke machine. Figures...

Aunt Ash taught Benson how to "call" the elephants... click below to see the video...

Jeremy and Brittany... we love her! :)

I just thought this was so cute...

And Jeremy and Benjamin could definitely have passed as twins...
One, Two, Three...

Jump!

I don't know what was going on here... this bird was just standing like that for the longest time... I thinking maybe it's wing pitts were hot?

The bears were more active than I've ever seen them! They are normally just sleeping, but these two were playing chase around the water and one of them even jumped in! It was really neat to see!

While this may look like a really amazing picture of bears, the REALLY REALLY amazing part is the fact that you can actually see HAIR growing on Benson's head! Woo Hoo! We might have hair by the time he's two!!

This is just to show how much room we took up at the exhibits... wow. (and the little blond girl was Christa and Jason's Friend's little girl-- so she counts as part of the clan!)

Three TIGERS! (Click on the pic to make it larger so you can see the beautiful tiger laying on the ground behind the first two tigers :) )

FOUR tigers!

Merry-Go-Round Time!

It always cracks me up watching all three of them milk the cow at the same time!

I LOVE this pic of Addie Grace!

Kisses for Aunt Ash! Thanks for coming to the zoo with us, Aunt Ash! We love you!!

The brown blurrrr on top of Ash's head is a humongous HAWK that flew over as part of the bird show (it's also worth your time to enlarge this one so you can get a better look at the expression on the guy in the black shirt's face-- i don't think he realized the show was going on..:) )