Milla and Mali Day

AJ has gone to a leadership camp for the weekend so I get to hang out with mum and dad all weekend long.  I get to choose what adventures we go on without having to negotiate with another kid and it is awesome!

Today after ice skating we went on a Mali hunt.  Mali is the baby elephant at Melbourne Zoo and to celebrate the 150th birthday of the zoo, there are 50 life sized Mali statues in the city for us to find.  We jumped on a tram and headed around to the city.

Look at how many Mali's we found...

Kevin Presley - he has cool hair and I like stars.

Melbourne Storm Mali - it wasn't a stormy day and Mali has cool shoes. 

Melbourne Tigers - Chris Anstey is now officially and elephantiger!

Elephants on Elephants - more Mali's on Mali.

Animals everywhere - a cross between a lion, cheetah, fish, zebra and lots of other animals...

Mali's Mali - the one Mali painted herself

Hello Possum - an elephant with purple hair and nail polish!

Too many faces - happy and crazy faces everywhere.

Angels - I like this one, it has nail polish too - so fashionable!

Mali waves - let's go swimming :-)

Dreamtime - I never knew animals could dream.

Orangutan - Yes, I am an orangutan.

Wooly Mali - my FAVOURITE Mali.  It looks like a real elephant with saggy skin!

Mali on Mali - friends of Mali again.

Human Mali - It's a human, not an elephant and his name is Fred!

Road Mali - Who ran over Mali?

I could tell you where all of these really cool Mali statues are, but that would take away all of the fun.  Why don't you go on your own Mali Hunt?  You can use the map on the Melbourne Zoo website to find some clues.

I hope that we have time to go on another Mali hunt next weekend, I am pretty sure that even AJ would have fun joining in this adventure!
Love Princess George

Wandering around Werribee Zoo

With all the craziness that has been the last few weeks - Mum being in Papua New Guinea walking the Kokoda Track (again), Dad making the most of some quiet time at home before he starts his new job next week and us on holidays with Nan and Pop, we really haven't had much family time.   We decided that we should spend the last real day of the school holidays together, doing something fun.  The tough part was to decide what to do.

It may have taken us all morning to work out what we were going to do, but when we did make a decision, it was a good one and we headed out to Werribee Open Range Zoo.

 

There were heaps and heaps of animals to meet and greet... but we had more fun running around, climbing anything we could and exploring.

We are so glad that we are Friends of the Zoo so that we can go to one of the zoos whenever we have a spare afternoon.

We had a great time together.  

It is a shame that the holidays are almost over, we could get used to this!

Love AJ and Milla

PS - if we ever get time, we will fill in the gaps that we have missed because we have all been too busy to blog!

At the zoo with Sonal

Remember how mum went to India at the start of the year?  Well some of the friends she made in India came to Melbourne to learn and explore.  We were lucky enough to be able to spend time with Sonal at the Melbourne Zoo.

Of course we had to visit the Australian animals to make sure that Sonal had a chance to see them all before flying back to India… 

but mum also insisted that we visit the tigers as she didn’t get to see tigers in the wild when she was in India.  

I hope that one day I can go to India to visit Sonal.  Perhaps we would be lucky enough to see a tiger in the wild.

Love Princess George

We're Going to the Zoo

Everyone knows that we LOVE going to the zoo so when we found out that the Lincoln Park Zoo is just up the road from where we were staying, we simply had to go there.  Now being Friends of the Zoo at Melbourne Zoo (one of the most awesome zoos in the entire world) for ALL of our lives, we have spent plenty of time at the zoo.  The fact that we knew all the zoo animals before we even knew what farm animals were was a little disappointing to our country cousins but super impressive non the less.

To say that we have been known to be zoo snobs is fairly true, we are often not that impressed by zoos that aren't completely awesome.  Well we are here to tell you that Lincoln Park Zoo is totally AWESOME!

There was an African Experience that had heaps of interactive displays as well as super cute meerkats.

As an added bonus, most of the exhibit was indoors so we didn't freeze as we looked at everything.  I guess it is pretty good for the animals too, I am sure they would get pretty cold if they were outside in the cold, especially since the African animals are more accustomed to warmer climates!  I can only imagine just how cold it must get in Chicago, I mean it is only Fall (that is American for Autumn) and it is super cold.  It snows around here so if there wasn't anywhere inside to go and see the animals, I am sure they would be forgotten by everyone, except the people who work at the zoo for the entire cold winter.

Do you know they even had inside exhibits that didn't' have any windows to keep the animals inside?  In the bird house the birds loved their homes so much that they just stayed there.  It was a little more concerning when the giant orb weaving spiders weren't behind glass but the signs explained that the spiders were fed in their little corner so they didn't wander away.  Of course we didn't get too close, just in case but made mum get in close for a photo!

The primates had an inside / outside house too, a house that they could play outside in when it was warm and an equally awesome inside home for when the weather was cold.

The best part about the primate area was the computers.  Did you know that the primates there know how to use touch screen computers?  I didn't know just how clever they were.  The gorillas were amazing, they touched the different symbols on the screen in order, following the same pattern, just like playing a game of memory.  The primate keepers, were their teachers, and they were just like parents, they bribed the gorillas with fruit every time they got it right!  Even without the bribes, the gorillas were really cool.

As well as the normal zoo area, with zoo animals, there was a farm section too where you could see cows, goats, chickens and rabbits.  We hid out in the barn area for a while playing games and trying to warm up.  Did you know that as a family, we weigh almost as much as a horse?  Surely that little fact will impress the country cousins!  It is amazing what you can learn when you visit the farm, even if it is at the zoo in Chicago!

So all round, Lincoln Park Zoo was pretty darn cool.  All of this and more and it is FREE.  Can you believe that, a super-duper awesome zoo that is for free!  I hope we get to visit this zoo again some day.
Love AJ and Milla

What did you do to start the new year? I headed to the zoo with my family and some great friends; Ellen, Tomoko and Tomoko's mum Toshiko. Since Tomoko and Toshiko were visiting from Japan we had to go to see all of the Australian animals first. The kangaroos weren't very co-operative and kept hopping away whenever we tried to get a photo with them in the background. The wombat was a little more co-operative, he let us pat him but he wouldn't turn around so all we have is a photo of his bum!

Once we saw the Aussie animals, I took everyone on a tour of my new favourite part of the zoo, to see the seals. The new seal enclosure is pretty amazing, I stopped for a rest on the way in to the exhibit so that I would have the energy to explore the space properly.

I remembered it was such a big enclosure that I had to stop and have another rest!

Now that I had seen all of my favourite animals, I didn't really mind where we went next, but I was in charge of planning our zoo adventure. Instead of touring the zoo to see all the animals, I took everyone on a tour of all the fun places I like to have my photo taken!

Being at the zoo with Japanese tourists meant that they were more than happy to take photos of me wherever I wanted to stop and pose! My photo tour also showed everyone the gorillas, monkeys, tigers, elephants, butterflies, orangutans and siamangs so I think everyone else was happy with the tour too. We even stopped at the Japanese gardens, just in case Tomoko and Toshiko were feeling homesick!

I had a great time at the zoo with my friends.

I had a great time when we went back to our place too - Tomoko and Toshiko gave me gifts so I spent the rest of the afternoon making an eraser, piece by tiny piece. Japanese toys are so cool!

Thanks for coming to visit me Tomoko and Toshiko, I hope you come back to play again really soon.

Love Princess George

Going to the Zoo

After we said goodbye to Nanny and Poppy we really didn't know what to do.  It was a really nice day out and we didn't want to go straight home (well I kind of did, but I thought it would be nice to get some fresh air!).  Luckily mum had packed a snack bag for us.  The biggest decision was where to go.  Milla wanted to go to the zoo, but I didn't really want to so I reminded her that she was going to the zoo for an excursion in a week or so, so we should go somewhere different.  

Milla had a great idea - let's go to Werribee Open Range Zoo instead!  I couldn't argue with that, I love Werribee Zoo and going on the safari bus to see all the animals wandering around.

We had a great time at the open range zoo.  Our safari tour guide, the bloke that drove the bus, was fantastic.  We saw all of the animals and even had time to play in the maze down by the hippo pools.

I am really glad that Milla has such good ideas.  I hope you all had a great day too.

Love AJ Pickle

Wagging

Mum made me wag kinder today.  I really didn't mind though, she took me to work with her and then we went to the Safari Zoo!

Of course my favourite part of the zoo was climbing the trees!

My mum rocks, who else gets to do cool things when they wag?

Shhhh, don't tell AJ!

Love Princess George

On Safari

Finally we had a chance to do something holiday-ish during our holidays, we went to Werribee Open Range Zoo.

It was fantastic.  We met Zoe, Luca and Abe there and went exploring.  Naturally we went on the safari tour, but the best part of the day was wandering through the grasslands to find all of the animals on our own.  All of the animals came out to say hello.  The lioness were wandering up to the fence, the monkeys swung by and even the hippos climbed out of the pool to say hello, it was so cool.

Of course, even in the bits where there were no animals we still had fun.  There were skeletons to excavate, giant ant hills to climb, boats to row and bridges to cross.  We all had a fantastic day at the zoo.  I hope we get to explore there again some time soon.

Love AJ Pickle

Student Free 

What do you do on a cold, wet and windy day when you don't have to go to school?  Why you go to the zoo of course.  

First stop was the frogs and then the reptiles, but only because they were on the way to see my favourite animals, the wombats.  We had lunch with the other Australian animals just before the rain hit.  It kept raining so we went to visit the butterfly house to let the mum's warm up.  

 The butterflies didn't seem to like little kids, but they did like me, see!

It was a great day at the zoo.  I am sure that half of the kids from my school were there too.  I would have stayed longer, but all the mum's were getting cold.  We weren't cold we had races to run and trees to climb.

I love student free days.

Love AJ Pickle

Sunday Morning

What do you do of a Sunday morning?  Often we stay in our pyjamas ALL morning and eat breakfast at least 6 times, but not today.  Today we decided to go to the zoo.

Now we do go to the zoo quite a lot, but so does most of Melbourne so I it is often really busy.  This morning the zoo was all ours.  Even though it was a beautiful sunny day we seemed to be the only people at the zoo.  Luckily the animals were all still there and they were really happy to see us, especially the Australian animals.

The kangaroos came up and said hello.  

(One even gave Milla's teddy a kiss!)

The emu strolled by.

Milla showed me a lizard peeking out from under the rocks.

Even the wombat came out for a play.

How did you enjoy your Sunday?

Love AJ Pickle

More Visitors

Did I tell you that my friends Marah and Odd (Sarah and Ed) have come to have a holiday in Melbourne and they are staying with us?  

Today, when everyone else was at work, mum and I took Marah to the zoo.  We had a great time and we got to see and do all sorts crazy things that we don't normally get to do at the zoo.

Naturally we checked out all the Aussie animals.  

The platypus was too shy to come out, but we gave the statue a kiss anyway.

Then we sifted through giant insect poo to look for insect eggs!

And finally we gave the kangaroos a pat and a feed!

We had a great day at the zoo, I hope that I get to do other cool things with Marah before she goes traveling again.

Love Princess George

Australia Day at the Zoo

Andrey is having a holiday at our house and today we took him to see who is new at the zoo. It was a hot day, so we spent a lot of time in the reptile house to cool down. When we were in there, we saw new reptiles that we don't often see;

A 1 week old frilled neck lizard

A 2 week old tortoise

And a really cool Rhinoceros Chameleon

Of course we let Andrey visit all the Australian animals too!
Love AJ Pickle