National Zoological Park

The girls and I went to the local zoo last Saturday. Andrew was scheduled to come from his annual ski trip that night, but had ski patrol the next day (his tuboggon test--he passed!). I knew I needed an outing to maintain my sanity. Since Alaina was sick I opted for an outdoor location (instead of the National Theater or Lakeshore Learning Center), reasoning that she would be less likely to infect others. Also, if she had an especially nasty coughing fit we could just stroll onto the next exhibit.

Alaina likes to "fly" about a lot now. In the picture below she is headed toward the pizza play area that's part of the barn animals exhibit. It's slated to close sometime this spring (lack of funding) so we visited it first.

Cheese wedge slide:

Olive tunnel:

After the barn area we looked at the baby lions, the turtles, and the prarie dogs before heading over to the other play area: a system of "prarie dog tunnels" that the girls just love.

Alaina's well into the I-do-it-myself stage. She didn't want any help balancing. She also didn't want much help picking out her clothing that morning. She's wearing red house slippers (Lizzie had a similar love of her red house slippers when she was Lainey's age).

Ellie in the tunnels:

Alaina avoiding pictures: