Vacation day one

Our first full day in VA/DC began promptly at 6:15 AM with Miss Emily popping upright on her air mattress at the first sight of stray light streaming through the slated window coverings. Anna joined her a minute later. I tried to keep them quiet so that Allie could catch up on some much needed sleep. I'm sure you can guess how long that lasted. I think I managed ten minutes.

It was another warm day and we had planned to visit the National Zoo later that morning. Both Clive and Charlie take mid-morning naps so Rich and I brought the girls across the street to the playground for a bit.

I made a bit of a Mommy mistake when I packed their shoes. I overpacked on clothes - the girls didn't even wear half of what I brought - but I limited the shoes. I thought that one pair of sandals and one pair of water shoes (which could be worn as sandals) would be sufficient and it probably would have been except for the fact that there was a ton of sand at the playground and my princesses don't like sand in their sandals.

So they complained about the sand in their sandals and I really can't blame them. I don't like sand in my sandals either. Now I know to pack sneakers for the next trip.

Here they are waiting for Daddy to grab a snack back at the house.

In that picture, they were saying, "It sure is taking Daddy a long time to get our snacks."

After the boys' nap, we headed off to the zoo and ate a picnic lunch after parking our vans. The zoo was PACKED with people. PACKED. And it was hot. I'm not complaining but we really aren't used to warm weather yet. We had borrowed a single stroller from D & A because the girls like to walk now and we didn't plan on spending that much time at the zoo. We ended up having to rent a double stroller because they were just pooped.

This is the only picture I have from the zoo. I had my 35mm lens on so I couldn't zoom in.

Allie was done after we saw Mr. Tiger. She was exhausted, hot and a bit frightened.

The zoo is on a hill and let me tell you, pushing that double stroller up that hill in that heat was draining. After I passed a family, I heard the grandfather say, "And here I was complaining about carrying the camera."

Unfortunately, we ended our zoo expedition a bit early. Here's what our van looked like five minutes into the ride back to VA.

When we arrived home, Don set up two pools in the yard and the kids spent the rest of the day cooling off.

- To be continued.