In February of 2021, my husband and I found out we were expecting our first baby. We knew right away that learning baby’s gender had to be a unique experience since this was such a special time for us (no basic confetti poppers here)! We are animal lovers and have visited the zoo many times since moving to Houston in 2015, so my husband had the idea to surprise me here with our gender reveal. He and my mom (the keeper of the gender results) worked with Kelly to set up the coolest experience – we were blindfolded while Jonah the sea lion (and very talented artist) painted BLUE on canvas, complete with a blue nose kiss print. That beautiful day in May, we learned we were having a baby boy! Kelly shared with us that while Jonah commissions lots of artwork, this was his very first gender reveal project. We are so honored to be a part of a milestone for Jonah and the zoo! Just a few weeks ago (on Easter weekend), we brought our sweet six month old baby boy to the zoo so he could see where we learned what he was going to be and experience seeing animals for the very first time. He loved it so much, and we so enjoyed seeing everything through his eyes. Unfortunately we did not see Jonah in the sea lion exhibit but we look forward to having them meet in the future and bringing him back to the zoo countless times for years to come! The zoo will always have a special place in our hearts and memories, especially the memory of our gender reveal.