We decided to go to the zoo this morning, sort of at the last minute. It was the perfect day for it, so I’m glad we went.

Our first stop, as always, was the polar bears exhibit. We watched as the mama bear nursed two of her cubs in the “cave” then watched this guy play, mostly with the log behind him, for several minutes.

Here I caught Kirkja on one of her jaunts away from mom. She always ran, never walked. Really it’s sort of a fumbling prance…light on her feet but still a bit clumsy. She’s clearly still getting used to the trunk, too, letting flop every which way as she moved about and tumbled over herself.

The gorillas are always a favorite of ours. The way they interact with each other is always fascinating, and I always try to watch them watch us. What are they thinking? This silverback kept a close eye on everybody, both on the inside and the outside. He watched this kid particularly closely, but never flinched or even reacted. Calm, cool, collected, and always vigilant.

Kirkja seemed to play with everything, even the dirt and her food. Here, she’s tossing grass in the air after rolling around in the dirt for a few minutes.

Kirkja went back to mom every few minutes and “checked in,” always bumping mom’s leg with her head seemingly to let her know she’s there. Kirkja is absolutely adorable and watching the two of them interact was fascinating.

We caught the snow leopard sunning itself on the highest rocks in its enclosure. Reminded us of Alice!

Kirkja ventured away from mom quite a bit, actually, but always seemed to head back to her side after exploring for a few minutes. Mom didn’t appear to be too nervous about it, either.

The star of the show today, and really the reason we went, was Kirkja, the baby female elephant. We watched her for 15-20 minutes and she rarely stopped moving. She’s adorable.