Zoo Brew/Save the Roar

I had Friday afternoon off and came home, Shawn made his famous waffles and I made my famous whip cream. YUM! The afternoon was looking better than the morning had started - Wrigley had poo'd on the bed while Shawn was sleeping - not a great way to start by any means. So we were contemplating when to go run and Shawn's phone rings. I am the worst at deciphering half a phone conversation, but Shawn whispers to me "brew fest" and shrugs his shoulders. When he finally gets off the phone he said it was one of the guys at work (one of the supervisors) and he wanted to know if wed be interested in going to a brew fest at the zoo. Now, for two people who don't drink - and beer at that, this sounded like a rip roaring good time - except not. But, this guy has really done a lot for Shawn, a lot - in fact he's one of the sole reasons Shawn started working for AMR when he did as he was being screwed around by the state for licensure. So we looked it up online to get more info. The event's called ZOO brew - all proceeds go to bringing back Lions to the Oregon Zoo. So I was sold - it's for the animals, plus maybe I would get to see some of the zoo.
So we arrive to the zoo get our tickets and our wrist bands and head toward the party, hoping to view the animals along the way but it appeared all the animals had gone inside fro the night except for the fat sea lion that was laying on a rock, some monkeys who had been given a phone book to play with and some brown packing paper. We went to see the polar Bears, but there were none, but instead of the polar bears, in their habitat we saw a hard hat and industrial bucket and plastic crate in there, so our question was - what happened to the person wearing the hat?

Overall the zoo is less than impressive - but then again we are comparing it to the Omaha Zoo - which is awesome! The layout is set within the woods - it really has a lot of potential, just not a lot of sparkle. Oh and did I mention the "Insect Zoo"? A section of the zoo entirely dedicated to insects - like hissing cockroaches, ladybugs and spiders. Hmmm. It was a kiosk/tiny hut with little bug houses - most of the bugs I had in my 8th grade science classroom.

We got really cool glasses that have Zoo Brew printed on them and 9 tokens to taste to our hearts content. Like our usual fashion, we started with Root Beer - it was ok... we decided to go for a little walk to see the elephants. One elephant was outside enjoying the immaculate weather, the other was inside eating. This may seem relatively uneventful but this elephant was special in that it was sporting his extra parts for all the world to see... TICKETS TO THE ZOO$40, TICKETS TO ZOO BREW $60, SEEING AN ELEPHANT'S PARTS HANGING TO THE GROUND (and all the adults laughing while children looked puzzled about the elephant's 5th leg) - PRICELESS

We met up with Shawn's friend and his wife and sampled here and there, they told us about some really neat things to see and do in the area. Afterwards we decided to go to dinner with them (it was like 9:30) we stopped by the rose garden and although nothing is in bloom, it was still pretty, even at night - you could still see Mt. Hood too. Then off to Lauralwood brewery for dinner in a really trendy little area. We had some burgers and fries and called it a night. We got home about midnight and it was then Shawn realized he had no clean clothes to wear for work for today - that made get the giggles. What a day, some good spirits, good company, a little elephant fun and we saved the lions all in one night!