St. Louis and Chuck's Surprise 40th!

Usually once a summer, we travel down south to Highland to see Chuck's family.  We went down this summer and decided to go to the St. Louis Zoo.  I love that zoo!  It's clean and it's free!

Of course it was super hot the day we went but the kids didn't seem to mind.

We up close with a bear.

And the hippos were busy cooling off in the water as well.  It's so neat you can watch them swim like this!

This zoo also has elephants.  Lots of them!  

We went in the insect house and saw an ant colony!

We also got to walk around the butterfly house.

Next we went to see the penguins.

They have a few different kinds.

We saw some flamingoes too.

Then we rode the train.

And took our first family selfie!

We sawa red panda.

And some huge snakes!

Monkeys!

Camels!

And a giraffe!

It was a great day at the zoo but we had to get back to Uncle Frog's because.....

there was a surprise 40th birthday waiting to happen!

We planned to have everyone there when we got back so lots of family and friends were waiting!

Chuck got some cool presents.

The kids had fun playing.

Chuck had fun with Uncle Corndog.

And of course his bros were there to help celebrate!  Chad even gave him this glow-in-the-dark Hulk mask!

And then he got his hair dyed red!

Happy 40th Chuck!  You sure don't look it!