The Zoo.... Finally

Well, I am finally getting around to posting about the zoo, one of the places we went over spring break. The kids thought this was the highlight of the week. They loooved it. It was enormous and we also chose the hottest day of the year thus far to go (92 degrees!!) so by the time we were done I was sick and completely exhausted.

We had a bit of an adventure though. Even though D.C. is only 55 miles away, because of the traffic it takes nearly 2 hours to drive there. I had my map, but I was very nervous to drive to the busy city alone. However, to make my kids happy, I will try anything at least once :) So, we arrived without incident only to find out that the parking lot was full. I had called and they told me it does get full but that it shouldn't be the day we were going because it would be less busy. BUT, it was. So I drove around for another half hour trying to find parking, calling Andy to try to help me find parking, driving up and down the street trying to find a spot. Finally, they took the sign away that parking was full and opened the lot back up because enough people had left that there were spots available. YES! Relief.

We got into the zoo and started walking around. The zoo is free, but everything else costs money, including maps. I wasn't about to spend money on a piece of paper with pictures, so we used the sign maps located all around the zoo. However, for the first hour or so we saw maybe a total of 2 animals. The kids were very discouraged, I was very discouraged, and decided this zoo sucked and was the worst zoo ever and even said so and all the kids agreed. No wonder it was free. They wanted to leave, but I wasn't about to do that after all the time and trouble I had gone through to get here. So I tried to be more positive.

We ventured down to another area and found a lot more stuff. It actually turned out to be great. The "houses" of animals were much better than the habitats outside because it was so hot, everything was hiding out. So when we finally made it to the mammal house, the monkey house, and the reptile house, the kids were in heaven and had an absolute blast. We stayed for hours and then spent another hour in the gift shop picking out a small toy. Jonah said "This was the best day ever, thanks mom! Oh, and this ISN'T the worst zoo, it's the best!" I laughed and had to agree.Climbing the fence because they were so bored from the lack of animals.

The male panda. The mama is pregnant and in confinement to make sure her baby is safe and will be born nice and healthy.

They requested to have their picture taken by this red panda statue because the real red panda was no where to be found.

They were SO excited to see the tiny goldfish in this habitat because of the lack of animals

Finally, something to see!

Bear was enthralled by these merecats and watched them for nearly a half hour


This orangutan was awesome and swinging all around and playing. We especially like it because Laylah had just done a project on animals the week before at school and had chosen orangs. She was very excited.

This snake was HUGE. It could have eaten Bear.



There's a huge croc in the top left part of the pic-it kind of looks like a tree root. It blends in amazingly (what a concept, right?) Jonah's favorite animals are crocodiles, he was SO excited. He even chose a croc as his toy in the giftshop.

Is it just me, or does this iguana look to be smiling? Funny.

After we were ready to head home, I realized the road I had taken to come to the zoo was closed for construction, so I had no idea how to get home. Not to mention that we were leaving at prime rush hour traffic. I called Andy to be my GPS and he guided me to the freeway and told me which streets to take and everything. It took us an hour to get out of the city and onto the freeway. I kept pointing out all the sights to the kids (the Washington monument, Lincoln monument, the Capitol, the Senate building-where daddy works sometimes! and the Jefferson monument. They were very excited and can't wait to come back and see it all up close) so they weren't too bored. Andy warned me it would take another few hours to get home. After getting lost one more time and having to call Andy again to guide us home (I really need a GPS-but more preferably, a new car with navigation ;) we made it after nearly 3 hours. Andy had dinner waiting, but I felt so sick, I crashed on the couch and Andy put the kids to bed.

It was quite the adventure, but I think we'll wait to do anything like this again until I am feeling more up to it and it's not so hot. Hence, for this reason, we didn't make it to the beach the week of spring break, but I bribed them with a Mcdonalds trip instead with a promise of the beach another time. We had a fun busy spring break, but it's nice to have the kids back in school :)