We went to the zoo, zoo, zoo - how about you?

Ever since father Xmas brought me My Big Animal Book my mum and dad have been forcing me to look at pictures of animals whilst making the most ridiculous noises at me. They've even tried to force their friends to make noises at me in the hope that I'll magically copy them (I'm still working on Mama and Dada - what more do they want????). By the way this is probably a good time to mention that JB is still winning the best animal noise award.

Anyway, after 3 months of this stupid game they decided to take a different approach and take me to San Francisco Zoo so that I could hear the noises first hand rather than their abismal impressions. So on the windiest, coldest day of the year so far they decided to take me out to a huge outdoor place right next to the sea (I'm starting to wonder if I can ask for another placement). I know Mum was a bit worried about going because she tends to feel very sorry for the animals but she put on a brave face and off we went.

We started out in Africa and I saw ostriches and giraffes. I listened very very carefully for the ostrich sound and the giraffe sound that they'd been making for me but I heard absolutely nothing:
Just in case the giraffe was just too far away I decided to get a little closer:
Not a sausage. So we moved on..

Next up were the pretty flamingoes. We got pretty close to them and I flapped my arms and shouted 'Uuggghh' but got nothing back. They just tucked in their heads away from the wind and totally ignored me. I told Mum that I didn't think much of the trip so far and that she needed to buck her ideas up PDQ. She reckoned she had the answer so we went over to where the big guys were. Now after 6 months of reading 'that's not my lion' I was certain that this would be where the action was and of course I know the lion noise so I was very excited to see this guy:
But even this guy was totally silent. I was beginning to get deeply suspicious, had they been making all this up the whole time? Surely my parents wouldn't lie to me? I decided to show them exactly what I thought of this whole experience by falling asleep, give them time to figure out what to do next:
When I woke up I was in a much more interesting part of the zoo. There were these really cool little guys who weren't in my book so I didn't expect any noises from them but they kept popping up all over the place:
Dad said they were called Prairie Dogs and they were so cool we decided to sit down in the sun away from the wind and have my lunch there so that I could check them out. After this they took me to the best place of all, the Children's Zoo. We had to go through a couple of gates and over a little pond that was filled with lots and lots of ducks - finally an animal noise and one I could (kind of) recognise!! When we got through the gates look what I found:
He was lovely, just sat there quietly and let me come up all the way and say hello. He didn't say too much but luckily all his mates who were running around outside butting people had a few things to say, here's one of them:
I had a great time chatting away to them all and doing my best arm flaps so that they could see how excited I was to see them. Unfortunately because of the all the wind there was a lot of dust flying around there and Mum was getting very worried that I'd get sore eyes so after chatting with the goats, pigs, horses and the weirdest scariest looking sheep they decided that it was probably time to go home. They've promised me that I can go back very soon though and this time I'm going to take my pal Ruby with me so that she can meet the guys.

Oh yes and on the way out Mum and Dad spotted a 'Leah photo opportunity':
As you can see, I wasn't too impressed! For more photos of the day please check out our photo gallery.

Here's to the next big adventure!
xxx