Easter at the Zoo

Hamslice's school is closed for Good Friday, and that happened to correspond with the opening day of Easter at the Maryland Zoo, so what a natural fit.

Mommy, the typical airhead, got the time wrong for the Easter Egg hunt, and we wound up arriving over an hour early (but miraculously on the correct date). So never fear, we went to Golden West, a hip diner in Hamden, and got pancakes with chocolate chips AND bananas for Hamslice. The pancake was so big that it served as breakfast and lunch, and may well be dinner also.

Then we headed to the zoo for some fun in the windy, cloudy, 45 degree weather. To our extreme delight and surprise, the zoo was offering Face Painting!  This time we got in line right away so Hamslice would be sure to have a turn.

The theme of the face painting was, of course, zoo animals and Easter bunnies. When Hamslice got into the chair, the lady asked him what he'd like to be, he answered without even pausing that he wanted to be 

a green DRAGON. With glitter. 

And... voila...

 I explained to Hamslice that the lady had drawn yellow dragon eyeballs on his eyelids, so when he closes his eyes it looks like a real dragon. From that point on, Hamslice tried to go the rest of the day with his eyes closed. You'll see in the rest of the pictures from the day that he is fully "in character"

 And here's Dragon Hamslice with his Easter eggs after collecting them in the all-city egg hunt. He turned these in for TWO chocolate covered peanut butter eggs.

The zoo also offered some nature activities like planting wildflower seeds in a Dixie cup. This is one of Hamslice's all time favorite things to do -- must be those latent farmer genes from his daddy. He scared most of the other kids in line with his dragon makeup. We drew comments and finger points from children and adults alike. Hamslice was in heaven.

He was enjoying the attention so much that by the end of the day he decided to wear his Easter basket on his head. It's all about the audience, right?