Swansong at the Zoo

Oh man. That last trip to the zoo was a hard one. It became such a beloved fixture in our life that saying goodbye to one of our weekly rhythms was very sad for us. We went on a Saturday so that Brad could join us. It was cold and gray, but we managed to have fun anyway.

Lions...

Tigers...

(here's a close up)

...and...triceratops? Oh my...

There's the bear!

Lots of bears on this trail. Not real ones...but lots of signs with bears on them.

This is a fun little walk that displays different Smokey the Bear campaigns from over the years.

Our favorite sea lions.

Snack break

The Asia trail was, perhaps, where we spent the most amount of time over the course of our time in DC.

The girls wanted to make purchases from the many gift shops every time we visited, but we held off until the end of our time, giving them lots of time to really think about what they wanted to spend their money on. These were their choices: a tiger and a wallaby. These choices were heavily influenced by their love of Winnie the Pooh.

I don't know that I've ever posted a picture of this station in the Giant Panda house. There are scientists that work here and monitor the pandas. They're behind a glass wall, but I have NO idea how they manage to get any work done with the masses of people that cycle through.

Daytime view of Zoo Light exhibits. Claire wanted to pose with Pascal (from Tangled)

And Lily wanted to pose with the tigers with her tiger.

The girls always loved this prairie dog habitat.

A few of them came out to say hi.

We decided to use our member discount and eat lunch at the zoo as a treat. And also because we were close enough to moving back home that we were already starting to empty the fridge. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of it all. We made sure to wear our matching koala shirts, in part for our trip to the zoo (although there aren't any koalas there...it's just a nod to the animal kingdom) and in part because we were having a goodbye supper with the Crawfords, who live in Australia.

It was a bittersweet farewell, and we were all a little bummed to say goodbye. I tried to snap a few pictures of our drive home, as it was one of our most traveled paths.

This isn't the main Zoo sign at the entrance, but it was the one I could grab a picture of. One of my few regrets from our semester in DC is that I didn't manage to get a family picture in front of the entrance. I plan to take the girls back one day and get one. I don't care how old they are at the time.

Views on Connecticut Avenue while driving home.

21st Street on the way to our alleyway.

This is the Philips Collection (a famous art museum) that was literally across the street from our alley.

And then back home with our critters. 

I have a lot of nostalgia about the National Zoo. We spent time there as a family, lots of visits with friends and visitors, and I spent nearly countless mornings there just me and the girls. I have so many sweet memories of chatting with them about the animals and seeing it all through the excited eyes of little children. We had a system of how we packed for the zoo and made our way through the zoo. I said a lot of "yeses" to random requests at the zoo, and we learned so much together. I'll always hold those memories as some of my favorite ones of my girls and me. It was most definitely a gift.