zoo with Dad

so we went to the national zoo a couple times so far... and evidentially I haven't posted any pictures of it yet! shame on me! anyways, here's a few of our favorites. (first, I should say, we had a great time when we went before with our cousins!) this time we went as a family; we love Dad's new job because occasionally he has some time off when he doesn't have to be working on something (aka dissertation) at home, so he can play with us! we had a chilly, fun trip with him on Veterans Day.

the cheetahs are a great favorite, especially with chi, and double especially when you can see the zebra in the background

just to prove baby was there too :)

Afton desperately wanted to visit the children's area last time, but we ran out of time, so we went this time. It was fun, but mostly farm animals, so not perhaps super-exciting. The girls did get to pet this cow. If I remember correctly, her name was Rose (the other was Tulip, I think i'm remembering which is which...).

There was a lovely tiger-enclosure, this one just had a baby a few weeks ago, the baby wasn't on display at all yet, but she was quite majestic on her own!

There were also some lovely lions, this guy was reclining happily at the top of the hill, looking for all the world like the king of beasts :)

We were also very excited to see the caracals and bobcats--we got there at lunch time, so they were all awake, and moving around. Rayna was particularly excited to see the caracals, though she was a bit disappointed that they didn't feed it live birds so it would jump up to eat them... I didn't have the camera at that part or I'd have a great picture of her excited face!

gorillas... there was a baby cambering around in there too, but by the time I got the camera on, he was hiding :)

the panda was particularly active that day too. I didn't realize she ever really walked around in that area... it seemed last time like she just laid there most of the time, doing not much of anything.

and it's not much of a zoo post if there isn't a picture of the kids climbing on a statue :)