What will we see at the zOOO zZOOOOO????

At the beginning of the month, we went to the National Zoo... I had a business trip to MD and thought it would be a great time for us to get away as a family. We had not been "away" in a LONG time, hadn't spent much time together as a family since my dad died, and frankly, needed it!!!!

There were Lions and Cheetah and Pandas, OH MY!
Mary loved the Elephants and the Cheetah, Claire the new baby panda... he is adoreable.. see their site for the awesome Panda Cam.. www.nationalzoo.org the zoo really is amazing... they have improved so much and are presently putting the Asia Walk in... Hope it is done for our next trip next year.

Our family tradition has always been to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival, which was the same weekend, but this year we were stradegic and figured that we ought to hit the zoo whilst everyone was looking at the Trees! And it worked... it was a great day. Its a great time of year for me to be there.. not too hot, as the zoo is on a HUGE hill.

The girls had a ball.. I think more so at the hotel.... hint to all those who travel with children... get a suite... we went to a place called the Woodfin Suites and it was about 40-50 dollars more, but WHAT a great idea... each girl got her own bed, thus they didn't wake each other all night, and there was a full kitchen...next time we'll take food instead of going out to eat. Althought we had a great dinner at the Rio in Gaithersburg. We ate at the "dough place"... the Rio Grande.... they give the kids tortilla dough to play with while they wait for dinner... GENIUS!

I'm going to put up a few more pics... enjoy!