As my sons get older, their posing together for photos is becoming more and more rare…

Almost exactly one year after Timmy and I spent the day at Denver Zoo to celebrate his stock market contest win, I took both boys up there for Mother’s Day in May. Dave was in Pennsylvania visiting his own parents, and as I’ve said for many years, I only ever want a fun day—doing something I want to do—with my sons.

Jacob has been interested in red pandas lately. When Timmy visited the zoo last year, I let him choose one stuffed animal as a souvenir. He chose an arctic fox, but pointed out a promotion where you save about 15% on two stuffed animals. So Timmy had picked out a stuffed red panda for Jacob.

Jacob loves that stuffed red panda, naming him “Ray.” He enjoys watching red panda antics on YouTube. But he hadn’t see any in person yet.

So we went up to the zoo to see if we could catch a glimpse of their red pandas.

First we checked out some of the other exhibits.

This brown bear simply walks back and forth. Over…and over…and over…

We were pondering the duct tape around the midsection of this camel…

…but this sign explained it all…

The boys enjoyed feeding nectar to the lorikeets.

One of those lorikeets took the cup of nectar right out of Timmy’s hands!

The first time we visited the red panda exhibit, they were sleeping. When we went by the second time, it was just after their feeding time, so we got to see them a little more active.