The Zoo

When I was flying into Phoenix the man next to me pointed out the zoo. It was right by the airport and I had a great view of it from the right side of the plane as we were on our final approach. I was excited to see it since our plans were to go there as soon as I arrived. The zoo looked beautiful - lots of trees and lakes. Another thing I found interesting flying in is that the whole Phoenix area was dotted with small mountains - just a peak here and a peak there with houses or buildings nestled up to them. Near the zoo there were some blobby, southern Utah looking formations with arches in them.
Lainy and the girls arrived from Ikea to pick me up just as I reached the curb and we headed off to the zoo. It really was a neat zoo with very natural settings and some cool animals. We saw a komodo dragon, walked through a monkey area where squirrel monkeys roamed free in a natural setting and I saw a giant anteater. The zoo had a lot of interactive displays (including the giant shell in the picture and the tractor below) and had a very nice pettting zoo that included the pigmy Cebu (photo below.)
Traffic was really bad heading home, so I ended up dropping Lainy off at the elementary school for a meeting and took the car and the girls home. Between Curly, the GPS and the garage door opener, I managed to find the right house :)
For those of you who haven't been there, the house is all one level and has a really nice big kitchen/dining/family room. The girls' room was very cute with its new coat of bright pastel paint. Their newly planted garden was looking good with 9 tomato plants, 6 or so pepper plants and rows of corn, zucchini and onions all rapidly sprouting.
The weather the first day was sunny and nice, like a typical day in May where I live. Friday was the same and Saturday was hot - like a warm June day. By Saturday afternoon it was starting to get cloudy and there was a wonderful warm summer cloudburst. Sunday was cooler and it rained hard the whole day with thunder in the evening. Lainey commented that I had gotten to see the whole range of Phoenix weather except for the hot weather!