And it just so happens that Jon is working outside of L.A, and Sarah was going to be visiting him for New Year's weekend, so we made plans to hang out together and go to the zoo and spend NYE together.
Here's a recap of our antics at the zoo:
Monkeys, Meatballs and Markers
The zoo, like Sea World, is another place where I become the biggest most excited kid. I would totally get my face painted and a balloon animal if Neal would let me!
So the morning of the zoo was cool and cloudy and called for rain but we bundled up and headed out. Neal and I got there about an hour before Jon and Sarah so I dragged him to the Sky Buckets first thing since I really wanted to fly across the zoo and see the sights.
$4 per person, per direction and the only sights were the tops of the trees. I was deflated as a day-old balloon animal. And we had to ride in the bucket with the picture of the vulture on it. The same one I saw go by while we were in line and made the comment of "that sucks if you get stuck with the ugly vulture bucket."
Karma is a bitch, Jessica..
We got off at the end of the bucket ride and walked down through the new elephant exhibit to make our way back to the front of the zoo to meet Sarah and Jon.
The whole exhibit had a theme of extinct animals in Southern California and how they are like modern animals. Who else wishes we still had sloths like this around????
One bonus to a cool day at the zoo was that all the animals were active and out having fun. Or staring each other down. Which maybe in elephant terms is a lot of fun.
We met up with Sarah and Jon and heading back off into the zoo. By far the best part of the day was the tigers. Tiger #1 decided to pounce on Tiger #2 and waited patiently wriggling its tushy until the other one was close enough to pounce! "Hiiiiiiiiiii frriiineedddd! Rawr!" It was so amazing to see!
We can't take them anywhere. Seriously.
This monkey was very proud of it's cliff. I think it was guarding its cliff and not letting the other monkeys up the ladder.
The zoo just had a baby panda born about 5 months ago so all we got to see were the two males out and about. Momma and baby were safely inside their den. This one is enjoying lunch. I wonder if he was over-charged for his lunch like we were? $6 for a small soda? Seriously? Give me a break zoo!!!
Sarah and I both love giraffes because being tall leggy women, we feel like they are one of our kind. Here is our really awesome, well laid-out and framed picture Jon took of the tree. I mean, of us.
There was a baby giraffe and I had to be dragged away because I really could have stayed put all day and watched them. Giraffe? Giraffe! (Amanda will get this...)
Last time I was at the zoo about 10 years ago there was a gorilla named Jessica. I was happy to see she was still there and just as lovely as her namesake requires her to be. Ha. Actually she looks a bit pissed. Bad hair day maybe?
Jessica the gorilla is nicknamed "The Queen" because she is their matriarch and has birthed five males. That's right! That's how us Jessica's do things!!! Except there is no way in hell I'm having five kids. Good lord, I hope that gorilla gets time to escape her brood!
After our zoo adventures, we had plans to meet my Aunt and Uncle in Little Italy for an authentic Italian dinner. We had some time to kill so we headed into Old Town for some drinks. I met Cameron Diaz at a bar there!!! Oh, wait that's my ridiculously gorgeous friend. See what I mean? She's just too pretty!
Dinner in Little Italy at Felippi's that night did not disappoint. We waited in line for an hour and wound our way through an Italian market to get to the restaurant part in the back (tricky... do that and try NOT to buy something while waiting!!!) and laughed over how once we were near the front, everyone thought Jon in his leather jacket was the maitre d' and kept asking him about tables.
The food was AMAZING. The best I have seriously ever had and worth the wait! You know a place is going to be good when their menu consists of less than a dozen things. You can have a variety of pizzas, spaghetti, ravioli, or lasagna. That's it. After starting with an antipasto salad I still think about, I opted for the meat ravioli with the baseball-sized meatball on the side.
We ordered a bottle (or two) of Chianti to share and they give you markers to draw on the baskets (or whatever they are technically called) around the bottles. Our first bottle was all of our names, complete with me having an awesome moment of asking Neal why he wrote "NRG" on the bottle just to be told they were his initials. Ah. Whoops. I knew that, I swear honey!
Our second bottle we let Jon be the master of and he gave it some Oregon love!
And to be nice to the one Beaver outcast at the table, he put an Oregon State heart on the other side. This is Neal being excited, he's just really full from his pizza.
Our Oregon bottle proudly hung up among all the others! We waddled out of the restaurant after that and headed home for our food-induced comas...
GO DUCKS!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment