A day big enough for an elephant.

Last(!) Sunday, the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium held a birthday party for the baby elephants. Being the elephants' biggest fan, Lauren was in attendance, of course.



At first, I was kicking myself a little because many people at the zoo were toting a "serious" camera, while I just brought my point-n-shoot.



However, I have to say that I don't feel like I'm missing much when I take photos with my Canon Powershot. For example, here we have your standard, run-of-the-mill photo of the king of the Jungle.



Zoomed in - now that's The King of the Jungle.



But getting back to the elephants. There were lots of elephant related activities and displays.



Mark is in denial that Ben Roethlisberger is taller than he is.



Lauren's favorite was the make your own sun visor booth.



Here she is again modeling her visor and posing with some woman. Oh wait, that's me. You usually don't see me appear in photos of our travels, so I'm easy to forget.



Oh yeah, and there were the elephants themselves too.



This year, the zoo installed a new shark exhibit to complement the polar bear exhibit. We like to make fun of the polar bear exhibit because the zoo always runs these wonderful adverisements with the bears frolicking in the water with zoo visitors looking on in awe. In reality, there is a sign at the exhibit explaining that the bears are only in the water 10% of the time. We've never actually seen the bears in the water for ourselves, so I was thrilled when this lowly shark swam over our heads.



While the polar bear exhibit is overrated, by far the most under appreciated and superior exhibit is the meerkat habitat. How hilarious is this little guy?



Kids can crawl through the tunnels and then pop up in bubbles around the exhibit to get a up-close look. Here's Lauren checking out Mr. Casual.

In the end, Elephant Day was a great success, and I'm glad Lauren got to celebrate her passion (As much passion as a four year old can muster) with those who share it.