Peacocks, girls, and polar bears

Today was the first full week of Christmas vacation and I thought there was a little too much computer/television going on so I told everyone to get dressed and we'd go to the zoo. There were lots of decorations there, many of them "Sponsored by Girl Scout Troop XXX," etc. Here are my girls:

Our zoo has a number of peacocks running around the giraffe and savannah areas, including this beautiful albino peacock:

Kind of a contrast, huh?

The female lion was very interested in the girls. Of course there was glass there, but they were only about three feet apart:

Next is the polar bear part. No, not the polar bears at the zoo, the polar bears in my back yard! Dh said he is going to swim all twelve months this year and since the water is darned cold (that's 59F (15C)on my instant-read thermometer stuck into the pool water which doesn't sound that cold, but it IS), I told him he ought to wait until Kevin got here so they could egg each other on.

In this picture you can see the bare tree behind Kevin. He was getting ready to dive in.

Here he was already out and dh was screwing up his courage to jump in:

Does he look cold or what?

Kevin did a great dive here although it certainly looks like he was headed for a belly flop:

And the final glory shot (look at those rosy faces!):

As long as dh doesn't expect ME to go in with him in January, we are in good shape. :-)