The Day We Visited the National Zoo

(1) The Deneweth kids + cousin Logan posing on the Bear statue. (2) My caged wild animals.
(3) ZoBo behind bars, "I'm innocent, I swear. Look at my innocent blue eyes!"
(4) A bee trap was the winner of Zoie's attention. (5) Cute tortoise column to the reptile house. (6) The Zoie and the Frog.
(7) Panda Bear! (8) The kids playing prairie dogs. (9) The elusive giant pizza at the zoo.

The day we visited the National Zoo it was H-O-T. And that means a lot coming from a Florida girl.

The day we visited the National Zoo, we were 1 week plus 1 day into our Summer Adventure. We had traveled from our house in Brandon, FL to a friend's place in Charleston, SC to my parents' in LaPlata, MD to my sister's house in Fredericksburg, VA to my dear friend Butha's in Winchester, VA and then down to our nations capital to visit the zoo. All while living out of a minivan and suitcases and all while 4 children being under the supervision of one (ahem) adult (me).

If that sounds overwhelming, well... you are right. And the stress of it all seemed to culminate on that scorcher of a day at the zoo amongst the caged animals.

The five of us traveled down the mountains of VA to the zoo and met up with my parents, my sister and Sunshine. Also, my other sister and her two boys and my friend Tabitha with her four kids. I'll do the math for you: that makes 17 of us.

It started out well enough (except we were about an hour late meeting my folks... but that's almost a given with me) until I almost peed my pants, so I rushed my clan in as soon as we found our parking spot and made a beeline to the nearest bathroom. After I emptied my bladder, I thought, "The worst is over, the rest of the day is fun fun fun."

Ha! Until 20 minutes later when at least 2 kids were complaining about the heat and how thirsty they were and then how stinky the mammal house was and then there was the meltdown over the lemonade machine not working and water just would not do!

Luckily, we did have a few happy and memorable moments. And I got some cute shots of the kids and one measly shot of the star of the National Zoo, the Panda Bear.

We did leave the zoo with souvenirs and Roxy's little stuffed Panda is her favorite friend at the moment. She loves her Pandy. :)

That day, I decided I was actually crazy thinking I could pull this trip off. I decided for the rest of my DC Metropolitan area tour I would camp out at my Mom's place and not move my suitcases until it was time to head down to OBX. <-- That was the best decision I could've made. I probably would be writing posts from the insane asylum if I didn't make that decision.
I'm so happy my Mom didn't mind ( Thanks, Mom! <3 ).

This was also the same day we learned that Dylan should not have red jello. 

<3, Tabi :D