ZOOper dooper fun Friday!

Fun Friday consisted of a trip to the D.C. National Zoo. I have been so eager to get William to the zoo and take advantage of yet another D.C. opportunity, but we always divert to the airport or a train ride because those are his real obsessions. He does like animals, but he's not fully entertained by them nor does he really care to play with animal toys that much. It just so happens that he's more of a transportation kind of guy. However, every kid likes a trip to the zoo, and I knew that William would have a "zooper" time once we were there.




Carrie, Ava, William and I loaded up in the car this morning and headed into D.C. where we met up with our friend Meredith and her 2 girls, Ella and Maddie. We arrived around 10:15 am with just enough time to pile on the sunscreen and hike over to the elephant house to watch the elephants take a bath. Carrie knew exactly where to go, so when we got inside the building, we parked ourselves on the front row. The zookeepers came out, turned on the hose and got a large bucket of soapy water ready. The elephant knew exactly what to do and sat down on the floor waiting for the hose to hit her! The zookeepers called out a serious of commands for the elephant who in turn changed positions accordingly. William was completely wide eyed. You could see his wheels spinning, "so this is a real elephant....wow, how big!" and his eyes were glued on the elephant the entire bath.




We then headed over to the panda house in hopes that the star of the National Zoo would be outside. We were lucky! One panda was outside walking around and the other one was inside his house eating some bamboo. William climbed up on a rock to get a bird's eye view and laughed when the panda picked up the giant bamboo stick to chomp on.




We gave a shout out to the tiger and gorillas before lunch.




After walking around for over an hour, we were all getting very hot and hungry. So, we just decided to find a spot on the ground (even though it was on the main path of traffic) under a fabulous shade tree. We threw out our blanket and set up our picnic.




The kids were starving and quickly dove for each other's meals. The moms were happy to have a sip of water and sit down for a few minutes. We all enjoyed the picnic and what's funny is that many people along the path stopped to say how prepared we were to think of bringing lunch and a blanket! The three of us laughed at the thought of bringing 3 toddlers and a 5 year old to the zoo in 87 degree weather without food or drink....that would be a disaster.




After the yummy picnic, we packed up and headed home. William really had a great time and wanted to stop and see the waterfalls everywhere we went too. He's mentioned the elephants and the panda a few times this afternoon when I asked him about our morning, but he prefers to fly his airplanes, race cars and carry around this school buses. He's just a wheels loving boy!