Zoo time in the Valley of the Sun

This is what you do when you visit the Phoenix Zoo in July.

I think we picked the "cool" day that week, when the high was only 103 or something like that.

At first, Dylan would only sit in my lap. But then he came right up to my face...

and said, "Mom, I go get wet now, OK?"

And he did.

Meanwhile, Abby (my niece) and Amelia were colorful crabs crawling along the shallow moat.

Jacob (my nephew) was a water wizard, summoning its streams at various locations with his amazing magical powers .

Jared (also my nephew) was also a water wizard, but he had the added power of his wee plumber's crack.

Mark (the littlest nephew) stayed in the moat, away from his wizarding brothers.

Apparently it is difficult for small water wizards to look at the camera and smile for their annoying aunties. It took a solid 5 minutes to get Jared to just look at, er, toward me.

In contrast, Abby and Amelia will stop whatever they are doing to pose for a picture, even if what they are doing is really important.

I think we saw maybe four animal habitats the entire time. We went from one splash park to the other. Then, we went home.