From sun and back and to the zoo

You might have heard my title phrase in a previous post.  Cate is an amazingly loving child - she tells people she loves them frequently, unprompted, and from the heart.  Sometimes she tell me "Mommy, I love you to the sun and back and to the zoo".  Since the zoo is her favorite place this is the best compliment she can give.  So this weekend I took the girls for a quick trip to the zoo, gotta love the season pass!  It was a perfect day for the zoo, we only needed sweatshirts not coats, the sun was shining and most of the animals were active.  We spent lots of time watching the gorillas since we hit their habitat just right and they were being fed a snack.  The girls were both fascinated by the mommy & baby pairs and the huge silverback sitting right in the middle eating oranges & grapefruit and throwing away the peels.  They were maybe thirty feet from the glass and all looking right at us since the food was being thrown from the roof above us.  It is crazy to see show many gestures or movements those gorillas have in common with humans.  Especially the mom who was cradling the newborn exactly like I used to hold the girls as babies.
Oddly enough Cate's other favorite thing was watching the zookeepers clean the elephant habitat.  Both elephants were in the elephant house and two zookeepers had raked up all the old stuff and were spreading out groups of fresh tree branches full of leaves and some little piles of something that looked like nuts or small fruits.  Cate asked a ton of questions about what they were doing and why and when the elephants would get to "come home".   On the way home she said "when I grow up I want to be a zookeeper".  I asked her why and she said she wants to clean up and feel all the animals.  This is a common statement from her and you know what, I don't doubt it for a second that she might do just that.