Santa Barbara Zoo

Lions, leopards and lizards, oh my! We made a family trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo on Saturday, starting up our family membership we won in a raffle earlier in November.

Violet's too old for a stroller (except for at Disneyland!), so we were packing our lunches, sweaters and Beanie Boos into backpacks. This backpack features wild animals, and was a recent hand-me-down gift from Michelle and Brooke. Thanks, guys, it was perfect!

It's always fascinating to see the gigantic California Condors, which once were on the verge of extinction but have been making a comeback in recent years.

Cora's armspan pales in comparison to the condor's 9-foot wingspan. She's a lot cuter, though!

The girls drew all the animals we looked at, including gorillas, lions, meerkats and a pair of gorgeous snow leopards.

I loved Violet's artwork. (Cora's is fun, too, but she filled many pages in her notebook, and that's harder to show here.)

This lovely zoo has some great play areas, including this hill where children slide down on cardboard. Cora was talking about this on our car ride up from home.

Our drive home along the 101 was gorgeous, right as the sun was setting. Yes, this is from my car window! What a view.

On the way home, we stopped by Colleen and Rigo's house, where they had invited us and some of our other Mom2Mom/Pioneer Club friends over for dinner. A great ending to a great day!