Summer is here!

Finally - the temperature in the London area topped 80 degrees for the first time this summer! The girls and I celebrated by going to the London Zoo for the day. We heard a lot of people grumbling about the heat, but it really wasn't too bad, at least not for people who frequently visit the zoo back home when it's over 90!

This photo was taken at the very end of the day. We were completely exhausted, but they still managed some smiles for the camera.


We really enjoyed the zoo. One great thing about London's zoo is the large number of walk-through exhibits, where you're in the enclosure with the animals. We walked through a butterfly house, three different aviaries, and a monkey enclosure. There were many groups of school children on field trips at the zoo today, which is always a bit of a challenge. Late in the afternoon, things settled down quite a bit when the field trip groups left to return to their schools. In the walk-through monkey area, the guide said that the kids had scared the monkeys and that they were hiding. We watched one area of dense leafy bushes and found that if we watched very quietly, the tiny monkeys would come out to the front of the bushes and watch us, too. They got really close to us - maybe a foot or less sometimes. Very cute and worth the wait to see them.

Here are a couple of animal pictures. Katrina loves the giraffes, so we had to catch them. And the bird below was in one of the walk-through aviaries. I'm afraid I didn't catch his name, though.