We Went To DC!

We randomly roadtripped to Washington D.C.  to go to the zoo. I've been there before a few years ago to the Mall but never experienced it like this. It was a fantastic trip and I'll be making it again soon for the Cherry Blossom Festival (EXCITED!)

My overall experience with DC was a pleasant one, I rode the Metro for the first time, whoa!

Definitely don't see many kids on the Metro, next time I come I will not be bringing the big stroller!

The wind from the Metro blowing Charlotte's hair

Metro girls

The zoo was nice, I can't lie though, I was a tad disappointed. It's a bit tourist-y for my taste BUT I think it's supposed to be, I mean it is our National Zoo and not a little hometown zoo for goodness sakes! My favorite area was the bird area. The birds had the most beautiful exhibits I think and they're all so colorful. The Kookaburra was my favorite, so funny to listen to him laughing! But as soon as I got the video camera out he stopped (gosh darn him)! As soon as I left I could hear him laughing behind my back, ugh! I did happen to catch this guy making a ruckus though:

The male tiger was putting on a show, roaring at the people behind the door and jumping up to peek through the windows. I'm quite sure he was starving. I was hoping to see them feed him but I couldn't stand there for that long hoping something exciting was going to happen.

Putting her hand in the tiger's mouth

The reptile house was my second favorite place, I love reptiles and amphibians...behind glass of course. I mean, I don't mind them out of glass if they are the non venomous small type with the not so gigantic teeth that stick out while they're eyeing you. They are amazing animals, I was pretty excited to see a couple anacondas, that is one big snake!

This guy was smiling in his sleep after a big leafy green dinner!

One awesome thing about DC that I noticed is that there are architectural details galore! I could just walk around by myself all day taking pictures of interesting details. And there are so many walls that are just screaming to be backdrops!

I'm thinking you guys are going to see a lot of DC in the future, hope you like it!

Happy Halloween!

We had a busy couple of weeks leading up to Halloween, here are pictures of all the fun we had!

We started off Halloween with a spooky story time at the library. They had lots of fun activities and candy for the kids and also stories of course!

Then Daddy came up to visit us and we were able to all go to the pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins together. Lexi slept the whole time so I missed some cute photo-ops :( Oh well, there's always next year!

We got our pumpkin carving on. Charlotte poked the holes for one eye on the cat and was done, she decided it would be more fun to play in the dirt. Lexi dug right in and proceeded to eat as much raw pumpkin as she could, then when she was done with that she joined Charlotte in the dirt. Both girls were hosed off before going back inside.

We went to Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens. Charlotte LOVED it! She had her face painted, she got to ride her first roller coaster, she watched a few great shows, one she was extremely excited about was Monster Stomp Revamped, she even got to meet some cast members after the show. Lexi on the other hand was not as thrilled, it was very very loud. Word to the wise, get out of Howl-O-Scream before 6PM if you are a scaredy cat like me!

Charlotte's dance class got to wear their Halloween costumes to dance in.

We went to ZooBoo, which is pretty much trick or treating at the zoo. It was very crowded, especially traffic/parking. The girls had a good time but it might be more fun for them when they get a bit older.

We had a bunch of fun decorating the playroom for Halloween. My favorite being the humongous spiderweb made out of yarn. The spiders kept falling off though. We made pumpkins and ghosts and bats and spiders. I drew a whole haunted scene on the chalkboard with a cemetery and haunted house and pumpkin patch with scarecrows and witches. It's pretty awesome, in my opinion.

Last but not least! Halloween day! Woo!! I can't wait to do it all over again next year!

Now after a long break in our schooling units, we are starting this next week with Forest Week!

What I Love

The best part about having a membership to the zoo: we went to see the elephants get fed at 11:00 and were home by 11:41 and I didn't feel guilty at all about not staying and getting my money's worth!

Animal Week: Day 4=Reptiles And Amphibians

It's Friday and the weather is beautiful! There is no way we are spending the day inside doing "school" so we are going to the ZOOOOOOOOO! I mean what better place to learn about animals than the zoo!? So here we go!

Outside of our zoo we have a life size elephant sculpture holding a butterfly on the tip of its trunk. If you get the chance to look closer you will see that the sculpture is made out a whole bunch of butterfly cutouts!

Before we headed out to the zoo I printed some images of animals we have at our zoo for Charlotte to find while we were there.

Since today was Reptile and Amphibian Day we spent a bit of time in the Herp House. Charlotte really likes looking at the snakes and frogs and other little critters.

At the end of the trip (we were there for 4 hours) Char decided she wanted to let loose and get all wet. Since the place was practically vacant I let her go crazy! I even let Alexis out of the stroller to crawl around and splash in the fountains. It was a wonderful visit to the zoo. I'm going to say it was the best visit to the zoo ever. We have a membership so we journey there often and now that it's getting cooler I hope we'll be able to go even more.

The girls fell asleep on the way home from the zoo and had nice long relaxing refreshing naps and when Charlotte woke up she was ready to finish some activities from the previous days. We did some sorting and patterns with the fish she colored on fish day.

She did a worksheet about mammals.

I bought some prepackaged curriculum for her last year and never used it because it was right around the same time Lexi was born and I was trying to adjust to having 2 kids. But now that I have that down pat and Charlotte is becoming more and more interested in learning we are using some of the curriculum from last year. She glued patches onto jeans and we counted the squares.

She colored a worksheet on all things blue, Lexi decided to help, Char was not pleased.

Honing her cutting skills while making a sunflower.

She loves pasting, so gluing sunflower seeds to the sunflower was a real treat for her!

Finally, showing Daddy the animals she saw at the zoo.

Overall, Animal Week was mostly a success, even with a few minor bumps in the road. Next week we start Baby Week and hopefully by then we'll be back in the playroom turned school room, see you then!