Spring break!

For the first day of spring break, we loaded up the schoeny's big rig and headed to the national zoo! We met up at Joni's early and spent at least half an hour figuring out car seats configurations and stroller placement. We had strollers in the way back, then Sammy, Frankie, and Owen, then addie, izzy, and Abby (izzy was squished!), then the 3-year-old crew, laney and Ellie, then Sarah, Adeline, and Adam. Then we put my double stroller in the doorwell. That is a well loaded van!

We made it there without too much drama. We reserved our parking with parking panda and were able to park in the vip lot, where the buses drop off! It was awesome and so convinent! And I found a coupon to get $5 off, so it was just a few more dollars than the regular parking. Score!

Fyi - that's a bison, not a potato, like Matt thought. (;

And the mamas snapping pics of the littles. 

The first animals that we spotted! Just look at their enclosure. (; we got a good chuckle. 

Since picnic lunch is so much yummier than at home lunch, everyone was starving, by 11, when we got there. So we headed down to the hilly zoo sign, set up our picnic, and let the kids run. That's 14 cute kids and 4 awesome moms right there. 

Disburse!

The kids had fun running up and down the hills, dodging some kind of animal poo, and climbing trees. I think they would have been just fine playing there all day! 

But there were animals to be seen! And giant pizzas to play on. 

It was a brisk day. Not too chilly, but chilly enough to need a sweater. 

The kids loved the giant pizza, and again, would have probably been happy to play on this all day. 

They rolled the giant tomato all around the park. 

I had to break up a pasta sauce fight between laney and these two strangers. We figured it out and all were happy. 

After the farm animals there was a tense few minutes while we frantically searched for Rosie. Thankfully a mama found her and took her to the police station, where Shelly picked her up after just a few minutes. Looking for a lost child is the worst! Thankfully there are some amazing people in this world!

We had very little drama (if I remember correctly) and everyone was in a pretty good mood all day. 

Little miss promptly fell asleep. She missed the elephants and the pandas. I was so sad, I knew she'd want to see those two!

Baby panda!!! We are all crazy about our baby panda!

I finally woke laney up so she wouldn't miss too many of the fun animals. Thankfully she woke up happy!

While the gang played, I took her to see the pandas. She loved them! 

And when we got home she told daddy all about how the baby and daddy were sleeping and the mama was sleeping, but she woke up and ate some bamboo. We were even hooked to the panda cam for a few days. 

We were all done with the zoo around 4, but realized that if we left then that we would hit mad traffic and have even madder kids. You do not want to meet a vandal of hangry kiddos, not to mention their mamas. So we decided (sort of, none of us are very good decision makers) to pick up Shake shack (always wanted to try that!) and eat on the national mall to wait for the traffic to die down. 

That was a little tumultuous. Sarah and I went in to order while Joni drove the big rig around with the noisy animals. Poor thing, there are so many one way streets and so much construction, that it was hard to get back to us. Then when we got to the mall, things got hairy again, culminating in sweet Adeline falling out of the van. I saw it happen and couldn't get to her in time - worst feeling!!! Thankfully the milkshakes and Ellie broke her fall and she was totally fine! Tender mercies! 

The kids ran and ate and ate and ran until we were all too cold to stay. And I will never get tired of this view. I remember a blog post of mine from way back when, where I was changing a diaper in the shadows of the monuments, and it still has that same sense of wonder for me. I love where we live!

The ride home was as easy as a ride with 10 under 10 can be. Some noise, some tears, no sleeping! But we made it home around 9, happy, tired, and thankful for such a wonderful start to spring break!