We celebrated Anara's birthday today by taking her out to lunch at Toney Bento's, one of her favorite restaurants. She always orders the same thing, a vegan bento combo with a Jones soda (which is evidently one of her favorites and hard to find in Portland). She also loves the cabbage salad.
After lunch we went back to the duplex. Chris and Shawn were out picking out something for the townhouse. When they got back, we had birthday cake and presents. Chris made Anara's choice of a flourless chocolate cake from the Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts, topped with fresh raspberry sauce and slivered almonds. We all raved about it. Then Anara opened her presents. She got socks and a sock gift certificate from Shawn and an iPad from her dad. We'll be taking her to the Apple Store on Saturday to find a good cover for it.
Chris and Anara and I went to Sunset at the Zoo, a special evening opening of the zoo with entertainment. We packed a picnic lunch to eat on the lawn while listening to the concert featuring Luzelena Mendoza, of Y La Bamba. She had an appealing singing voice and style.
Of course the best thing about going to the zoo is getting to see the animals, and evening is an especially good time to view many of them, since they are more active at dusk than in the heat of the day. We got to see many animals moving around that are normally asleep or just lying around.
The lion and two lionesses roared, and one of the lionesses leapt up on a tall rock, looking very imposing from her perch on that height. The sea otters were lounging on their backs, and one was rubbing its cheeks and looking especially cute. The elephants were vocalizing, and the smallest one was rubbing its belly on a rock. Suddenly one elephant trumpeted, and all of them moved over to the door to their enclosure, evidently waiting for their keeper.
The giraffes were moving around and eating. We got to see some gerenuks (also called Waller's antelopes). They have very long slender necks and can rear up on their hind legs to browse. That's an eye-catching sight. We saw three black bears tussling and grooming, being very sociable.
Toward the end of the evening, we were almost alone in the zoo, so we got a great view of everything. Going to the zoo was a good choice of birthday outings, because Anara loves animals.
Ken stayed home for the evening and worked on photos. Shawn went to a Wednesday evening art class to make up for one of the Saturday's she missed. When we got home from the zoo, it was time to start getting ready for bed. We slept in Anara's bed and she slept downstairs. We wanted to be ready to set out for the coast reasonably early on Thursday, and Chris was planning to make waffles for breakfast.
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