Overnight Trip to DC

On Friday, we took the kids into DC for an overnight trip.  While Brian and Tyler headed over to the hotel to check-in, Brennan and I went to the Air & Space Museum.  It was pouring rain and I left my camera in the car when Brian dropped us off, so I don't have any pictures of Brennan in the museum, but let me say that he was excited!  We got to walk through the former space lab (a replica?) that was the predecessor to the current space station.  While we were waiting our turn, Brennan was brimming with excitement and proclaimed that, "My dream has come true!  I'm going to be an astronaut!"  Very cute!  We watched a show at the planetarium and then took the metro to the hotel to meet Brian and Tyler for dinner.  Brennan has been talking about riding the metro for months, so he was very excited about that.  We had to switch trains and at one point, he ran down the escalator with me to catch the orange train that was already at the platform and we made it!  It was raining, so we decided to take a cab to dinner, which the boys loved.  Brennan had heard about a taxi cab, but didn't fully understand it until then.  On Saturday morning, we headed over to the National Zoo.  We got there early enough to get street parking right outside of the zoo's entrance!  The zoo is free and the meters can be refilled using a cell phone app, so it was perfect!  The zoo officially opens at 10, but the grounds open at sunrise.  We were there before the buildings opened, but there were many animals out and available to see.

We walked through the Asian trail and the bird exhibit first.  We also got to see the giant panda.  Brennan really enjoyed the house of Apes.  Unfortunately, we never got to see the Lions and Tigers - the enclosure was being watered and we didn't stay long enough to make it back.

Tyler was eating a piece of candy from the hotel front desk and it slid down his throat and didn't choke him, but he was clearly unhappy.  He cuddled into Brian for comfort.

Right below the Lemur exhibit was a pond full of red ear slider turtles.  Looks like we found a new home for Flash (haha!)  Brian did not like my joking about that!

I didn't take pictures of the exhibits, but the zoo had made so many wonderful improvements since I had last been there.  The elephant exhibit was beautiful and included a bridge that allowed you to walk right over the elephant enclosure.  As we went through, I kept thinking that it was nicer than I remembered.  The weather was perfect - in the 70s!  We will definitely have to go again.  After about 2+ hours, Brennan was tired of walking and we decided to head home for lunch.