Saturday morning rolled around and Rick was quite content to be lying in bed warm and comfortable under his comforter. Just as he reached the climax of a particularly wonderful dream, he was suddenly jolted awake by something falling on him and bouncing up and down repeatedly.

"It's Saturday! It's Saturday! We're going to the zoo today! Up! Up! Up!" Chloe yelled pulling the comforter off of Rick exposing him to the chilly air.

With that, Rick slowly realized what exactly had fallen on him, and with tremendous effort he rolled over, grabbed Chloe and gently tossed her on to the bed beside him. Sitting up and looking through blurry eyes towards the alarm clock, Rick couldn't help but notice the time, and with that he rolled back over, jamming the pillow down on his head and pulling the comforter back over him.

"Chloe. It is only 6 am. We still have several hours. Please go back to sleep" Rick mumbled out from under the pillow.

"No daddy! It is time to get up! Kate is coming and I need help choosing what to wear. I want to look nice." Chloe added with a small pout.

Realizing that she was not going to relent he slowly started to get up.

"Ok. I'm up. How about you go get Alexis up while I get ready?"

"Ok!"

And with that, Chloe ran from the room.

Getting up, Rick quickly showered and put on jeans and a grey t-shirt and headed downstairs to make breakfast.

As Rick mixed the pancake batter, he heard a door slam and saw what could best be described as a zombie daughter heading down the stairs. As a grouchy Alexis slowly walked down the stairs, a heavy foot fall reverberated with each step taken and was accompanied by a low groan, Rick looked up to see that while still sleepy, a severe scowl covered her face as she glared daggers at him.

"Why did you let Chloe wake me up so early? She said you sent her in. WHY!"

"Well, I couldn't let you sleep in if I didn't get to, now could I?" Rick asked with a raised eyebrow and a twinkle in his eye. "And where is your adorable sister anyways?"

"Evil! Evil! Evil! You knew I stayed up late and you still let Chloe wake me up. And in answer to your other question, she is tearing through her room like a tornado trying to choose out the perfect outfit. She seems quite enthralled by Kate."

"That she does" Rick muttered under his breath. "Pancakes?" Rick questioned as he held up the pan holding three perfectly golden pancakes.

By the time all the pancakes were done, Chloe still had not made her way downstairs which worried Rick.

As he climbed the stairs to investigate, the sound of little whimpers reached his ears, prompting him to speed up. Reaching Chloe's room, he opened the door and was shocked by the amount of clothes scattered around the room. He didn't think there was a single item of clothing left in any of the drawers or in the closet.

"Honey! What's wrong?"

"I can't…figure…out…what..t..to wear today. I want….to look nice." Chloe managed to say in between sobs.

"Oh baby, come here" Rick said holding out his arms for a hug. As she crawled into his lap he tried to figure out the best way to help. "What about your purple flower shirt. You love that one"

"I don't know! What's Kate's favouritest colour?" Chloe said while burying her head in her dad's chest.

"I don't know baby, but I have an idea. How about we head downstairs and have some breakfast. Then we take a short nap. After we wake up we can call Kate and ask her what her favourite colour is. How does that sound?"

"I guess that will work" Chloe says as she finally calmed down enough to crawl out of her dad's lap and heads downstairs for breakfast.

After breakfast, Rick managed to get Chloe down for a small nap promising to wake her up in one hour so that she could call Kate.

Exactly one hour later, Alexis woke Chloe from her nap and handed her the cell phone with Kate's number already dialed.

"Okay Chloe, just hit the little green phone button and wait for Kate to answer."

Doing as instructed, Chloe hit the button and put the phone to her ear.

"Kate! It's Chloe and I have a question for you and dad said I could call you and ask my question if I promised to take a nap and I did so now I am calling you." Chloe yelled out in a single breath as soon as Kate answered the phone.

"Hi Chloe. So you took a nap already this morning? Well, since your dad promised you could ask me a question, what is your question?" Kate said with a little laugh.

"What's your favouritest colour?" Chloe asked in a serious tone.

"Purple." Kate responded just as seriously.

"Thank you Kate! See you soon!"

And without waiting for a response Chloe hung up the phone and started tearing through her room trying to find all her purple clothes. Having found them all she laid them out and started examining which one she liked best. Finally, she reached for the purple flower shirt Castle has suggested that morning and pulled it on over her head. Adding blue jeans, purple socks and her tennis shoes, Chloe was ready to go.

Running out into the hall, she found Alexis coming out of her room.

"NO! You have to wear purple!" Chloe yelled out as she saw that Alexis was wearing an orange shirt and jeans. "Purple is Kate's favourite colour so we all have to wear it!"

Hearing the commotion, Rick quickly ran up the stairs and heard the end of Chloe's pronouncement.

"Darling, I am sure Kate will like us no matter what we wears, but I will tell you what, if, when she gets here she is wearing purple, Alexis and I will change into purple shirts as well. Deal?"

"Deal."

They then headed to the kitchen and proceeded to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiched to take with them to the zoo. Just as they finished packing the sandwiches into a small backpack the doorbell rang.

Alexis, being closer, opened the door and when she saw Kate moaned. "You're wearing purple," and before forgetting her manners invited Kate inside and then dutifully marched off to her room to change her shirt.

"What was that all about?" Kate asked in confusion. "After Chloe's call this morning it seemed like a good idea to wear purple, but Alexis' response has me wondering if I made a mistake."

"Alexis is just a little irked that she has to go change. Chloe got upset this morning when she saw Alexis wearing orange. So, we made an agreement that if you were wearing purple when you got here we would all wear purple. So, if you will give me a minute, I am off to change into something purple. Oh the things I do for my daughters!" With a put-out expression on his face, he turned and headed for his room.

Reaching out her hand, Kate snagged Castle's wrist and pulled him back to her. "Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"After what you saw on Monday—the pictures on the board, I was worried about you. I know how difficult it can be, especially seeing someone so close to Alexis' age, and I just wanted to know if you were okay. We can talk about it if you like."

"Did you get the guy who did it?"

"Yeah, we got the guys."

"Well, then I am okay. Knowing that you got the guys helps. A lot. Now, I really should go change my shirt before Chloe yells as me again for holding up the outing."

Letting go of his wrist, Kate only had a second to compose herself before she was nearly bowled over by Chloe.

"Kate! Kate! Kate! Are you excited to go to the zoo? I am! Can you tell? We are all set to go! I can't wait! You're wearing purple just like me. Do you like my shirt?"

Kate quickly grabbed up the bouncing girl in an attempt to get her to calm down.

"Yes Chloe, I am excited to go to the zoo too. I love your shirt. You look very nice."

Upon hearing Kate's declaration, Chloe calmed down and hugged Kate tightly.

Once everyone had changed and gathered in the entryway, they headed off for the Bronx Zoo.

Arriving at the Fordham Road entrance of the zoo, Rick insisted on taking pictures of everyone in front of the Rainy Gates. They took individual pictures as well as group photos. In fact, he even managed to convince another patron to take their picture in a manner reminiscent of The Beatles Abbey Road shot with Rick in the lead followed by Kate then Alexis and Chloe walking through the gate at an angle so that they would all be in the shot. While Kate felt ridiculous, she couldn't resist the charms of all three Castles when the ganged up on her. Once Rick was satisfied with the pictures taken, they managed to get inside and bought tickets.

Once inside, they immediately headed for the monkey house—a beautiful building that looked like a miniature New York County Courthouse with white pillars and instead of the people, the house was decorated with monkeys, including the statue on top. The closer the group got to the monkey house, they more the Castles started to act like monkeys. Since there was no way Kate was going to act like a monkey, she started snapping pictures of the group. Before entering the house, once again Rick insisted on a photo op. Acquiescing to his request, Kate started snapping photos of the group as they monkeyed around. Before she could stop him, Rick grabbed the camera from Kate's hands and shoved her towards the girls. Chloe immediately jumped on Kate and held on tight just like a baby monkey.

"Kate! I'm a monkey! See?"

Chloe then proceeded to hoot like a monkey. Not to be left out, Alexis came over and also started treating Kate like a jungle gym.

"If you are not going to act like a monkey then we have to get you involved somehow." Alexis said looking up at Kate with a smile.

All the while, Rick was snapping away at the sight before him. Finally, enough pictures were taken and they were allowed to enter the monkey house with Chloe still hanging on to Kate's back.

Looking around, even Kate couldn't help but be drawn in by the monkeys in the cages around her. Walking right up to the glass, Kate held out her hand and pressed it against the glass, all the while looking up with an awed expression on her face. On her back, Chloe reached out her hand like Kate was doing and had a similar expression of awe on her face. After a couple minutes, Kate put Chloe down allowing her to run around to all the other exhibits while Kate followed slowly behind.

After the monkey house the group headed to the children's zoo. While Alexis and Chloe ran all over the play structure, and down the slide and through the gopher tunnels, Kate and Rick sat and watched in comfortable silence.

"Chloe! Alexis! It is time to move on. The sea Lion feeding is in five minutes and I don't want to miss it. Chop, chop! Times a wasting." Rick finally called out after about thirty minutes had passed.

Not wanting to miss the feeding either, the girls ran over and they headed off to the sea lion pool.

"Look Daddy! They are feeding them fish" Chloe couldn't help but yell out during the feeding.

"Yep, doesn't the fish look yummy?" Rick asked with a mock serious expression on his face.

"Ew! Daddy! Fish is gross."

"But don't you like fish sticks? Those are made of fish."

"Well…they don't look like fish so they are okay." Chloe said with her faced scrunched up from thinking. "Those still have eyes." Chloe added with a shiver as she pointed to the sea lion pool.

Once they had their fill of watching the seas lions eat they headed out again.

"If we hurry we can see the tiger demonstration. What do you guys think? Or we can go eat. Your choice."

"Tigers!" the two girls yelled out in unison with Kate's calmer vote.

"Tigers it is then. Hurry!"

Practically running, they managed to get to the tiger house in time for the demonstration. As they watched, they saw the trainer lead the tiger through exercises like standing up on its hind legs to show its belly and bearing it teeth. Throughout the whole thing, everyone was leaning forward and staring at the tiger in awe.

"It's so beautiful" Alexis sighed.

After the exhibition, they wandered around the exhibit and couldn't help but stop at one particularly interesting set up. On the wall hung a giant life size poster of a tiger standing up with a measuring stick next to it showing that it was eight feet tall and allowing people to compare themselves to the tiger. When they saw this, everyone wanted their turn while pictures were taken.

"Chloe, come here. You want to climb on my shoulders and see if the two of us together aren't taller than the tiger?" Rick excitedly called out.

With that, Chloe quickly ran over and climbed onto her dad's shoulders. Rick held tightly onto Chloe's legs and carefully stood up. Once they were fully upright, Alexis pointed the camera in their direction and directed them to roar. While Rick held Chloe, she curled her hands in the shape of claws and roared dramatically at the same time as Rick. Rick then put Chloe down and directed Alexis to stand in front of the measuring tape.

"Kate, why don't you join Alexis for a picture?"

"Please Kate?" Alexis quickly inserted before Kate could say no.

Agreeing Kate went forward and joined Alexis for a photo.

"Now a picture of all my girls" Rick said pushing Chloe towards them.

After a quick discussion, all three girls turned their backs to Rick, then quickly turned around lunging a foot towards Rick and curling their hands and roaring while Rick snapped a couple shots of them.

Stopping for a quick lunch, they downed their sandwiches and then headed for the butterfly garden.

Walking in, the whole group stopped and just stared and the sight before them. All around was a rainbow of colour and flight as flowers bloomed and butterflies flew overhead.

As they slowly walked around the garden the sights before them had them all watching in silence. That is, until Chloe let out a loud squeal.

"Daddy! A butterfly landed on my nose!"

Looking over Kate saw the cutest sight with both Chloe's eyes pointed directly at her nose and her hands up in the air almost as if she was under arrest. After that, they group became much more talkative.

Finally reaching the end of the garden, the Castles ran towards the cardboard cutouts of bugs were they had holes for faces and arms so you could actually be a bug. At this point, Kate was having so much fun that she willingly got behind the cutouts and became both a butterfly and a bumblebee.

Finishing up, Rick turned and noticed that Chloe was starting to drag a little.

"Okay, one more thing and then we are going home. How about the Wild Asia Monorail?"

Agreeing that it was the best option they headed off for the final attraction of the day. Climbing aboard they whizzed around the area dedicated to animals of Asia.

About half way through the ride, Chloe slumped over on Kate's side, fast asleep. Holding her close, Kate continued to watch the animals go by while gently stroking Chloe's head.

Once the ride was over, Rick woke Chloe up. Leaning her head against her dad's leg, with her eyes barely open, Chloe slowly walked back to the car to head home.