Who DIDN'T go to the zoo yesterday?

It was an absolutely gorgeous day in the DC area yesterday. We were itching for Addie to get her nap over with so we could get out of the house and into the sunlight. She went down a bit later than normal, and then we had to have lunch, and THEN we got out of the house.

We decided to head to the zoo. The last time Addie went to the zoo, she was too young to really get a lot out of it. Well now that she has her repertoire of animal noises and she can point to the animals in a book when we ask here "Where's the duck? Where's the elephant?" we knew that the real live animals would captivate her.

What we didn't know was that pretty much everyone else in the DC area wanted to go to the zoo, too, which meant that parking was HORRENDOUS. Like many of the attractions in the DC area (museums, monuments), the zoo itself is actually free of charge, so we are happy and willing to pay the exorbitant parking fee (hey, they gotta feed the elephants), but there wasn't any parking to be had. Tempers were running high in other cars (and, admittedly, in the front seat), but luckily Addie didn't notice--she was in a great mood (having snacks in the car was also a help) so she didn't notice that we circled the zoo grounds numerous times. We were about to give up, when we headed up Connecticut Ave. and found a spot right in front of the nearest metro station, which just a 10 minute walk away.

So by now it was 2:20. The only problem was--Steve had to be at a function for work back in VA at 4pm. So we decided we had approximately 35 minutes to be at the zoo. Add in the fact that mommy and daddy needed a bathroom break, let's just say that we did a zoo "blitz"

We saw: zebras, miniature pygmy ponies (which we just called "horses"), emus, elephants, hippopotamuses, a sloth bear, and gorillas. Of course, there were a few squirrels and birds on hand, too.

Here are some of the few photos we felt we could spare the extra seconds to snap on our rush through the zoo :)