The Nurnberg (Nuremberg) Zoo

I have been feeling pretty lousy the past month and a half - nauseous, tired, grumpy - but wouldn't you know that good ole sunshine and the great outdoors is a wonderful cure for all that morning sickness! We've been pretty active lately - going to Passau, Germany and Cesky Krumlov (a beautiful medieval city in the Czech Republic) last weekend, attending BBQs and hail and farewells at local Gasthauses, shopping for outdoor furniture in Neumarkt and today we ventured out to the Nurnberg Tiergarten (Zoo). It was a beautiful sunshine filled day and the temperature stayed around 74 degrees - perfect. We got off to a late start - Luke has taken up sleeping in later than usual so he didn't get up until 9:45am. Brian and I weren't much better, sleeping in until 9:00am. Anyway, we headed out the door around quarter to 11 and arrived at the zoo a little before 11:30am. We spent 2 1/2 hours walking around, sans stroller. Luke is at a wonderful age where he doesn't need a stroller, stays fairly close to Brian and I, and when he gets a little tired he let's us carry him, for a few minutes anyway. He can be a little pokey so our walk around the zoo was a little slow going at times but we had a great time looking at all the animals, wandering around the kinder (children) zoo (complete with a HUGE playground, pigs in sand and goats to hang out with) and stopping at the little garten for french fries and drinks. The Nurnberg zoo is nice, a good amount of animals but nothing compared to the St Louis Zoo or Milwaukee County Zoo but we still had a very nice time and I'm sure we'll go back again and again. We had a great time and have some pictures to show for it. I'll try to get our Passau pictures posted sometime soon but in the meantime, enjoy the pics of the 3 of us and some friendly animals.

The Prarie Dogs - Luke adored these little creatures - they are pretty playful and active so he got a kick out of watching them run around and scramble up the side of the logs.

See? On his tip-toes watching those Prarie Dogs.
Time for a shoulder ride! He realized he could see a LOT of stuff from this vantage point.
The playground in the Kinder Zoo
Fat pig buried in the sand.

The goats! You could pet them but Luke had no interest - he just liked to walk around.
This is as close as he got to these guys - he would not touch them (not that I minded at all - ewww, dirty goat!) ;)
Snack time!

There are wild horses behind us - exciting I know.

We are looking for seals. Luke had no idea what was in the water until a seal popped it's head up and snorted out water right in front of us. He figured out what was going on and was trying to find them all.
Spotting seals - he loved it!
A penguin parade