Spring Break!

Hurray! Peter, Owen and Reilly were on spring break last week! Pierce, too, of course. Me, too, I guess. Although today, with everyone back in school for only the 10th day all year, sorta feels more like a break :) but I digress....
For the first time in 10 years, the weather in MD was PERFECT for spring break and we all loved soaking in the sun, although it was still quite muddy thanks to the ton of melting winter snow. Happily, that didn't stop the spring breakers from opening the garage and spilling its entire contents of bikes, bats, balls, hockey sticks, gloves, and scooters every single day. I said, "No." to the sprinklers and water guns though. But "Yes!" to a couple of friend sleepovers and a day trip to National Zoo. If you go there, you keep your fingers crossed that you will get to see the real rock stars of the zo0...
The Giant Pandas! We got there in time for breakfast....
and a nap!
We thought the sloth bear hauling its baby around was so cute... and oddly... familiar! Owen and Reilly also took photos of...
the meerkat and ...
the prairie dogs. Dad took pictures of...
the elephant. I took pictures of....
Reilly! Owen and Pierce were not in the mood, but they got a kick out of...
the billy goat with its own playground equipment and Dad's favorite was...
the Komodo Dragon, not really but it posed for him, so why not? Actually, we spent the most time laughing at the gorilla family swinging all over the place with their 14-month old baby, a lot of which also looked very familiar! Too bad they live behind glass and photos really don't work. But maybe you'd rather not see how they eat: they have poor digestive systems so they have to vomit and re-eat their food several times-YUCK! Oh well. At least when you have to sit down to dinner at our house, you can remember that and know we really are doing better than the monkeys! No matter. Pierce loved it all... especially getting to see all the "animals" (a great word to learn at the zoo) with DADDY!