4th of July

We chose to spend our 4th as just a bonus day for a fun family outing since our weekends get so crunched with errands and chores. What better way to celebrate our independence than to go to the zoo?! I didn't even take the care to dress Leila in patriotic apparel, but her skin ended up various shades of red and blue (see bomb pop below!) It was actually a fun day for us, because it was the first time Leila was really excited and engaged in the zoo. She kept repeating that she wanted to find "Jorge and the zebras", with "Jorge" being Curious George. Strangely, the zebras were the one animal we were unsuccessful in tracking down, but she became soon fascinated by the hippos, the seals and the elephants peeing and pooing (2+ must be the age when potty language becomes a fixation - she was still talking about the impressive elephant pee/poop this morning!), so she was not too heartbroken to miss them. Leaves something to come back for next time.


Though the tourists are in full flux here (my metro frustrations will be reserved for a future entry), we actually found the 4th to be a pretty good day to go to the zoo. We arrived around 10:30 and left shortly before 1:00 and the crowds were only thickening by the time we left. The biggest challenge was finding a creative way to get to the zoo, as Memorial bridge was already closed at 10:00a.m. I had the clever idea to take Key Bridge to the freeway and loop back around to Rock Creek via E street, but then I made Cesar miss the exit to E street because I was confused by the sign that said truck exit and he looked down towards Rock Creek and saw that it was closed anyway, while screaming that we need a GPS and yelling at me for my lack of directional sense (he needs to speak to Massi or Julie or Jean or anyone who ever road in a car with me in highschool, college and beyond to get verification that I was born without an internal compass and take that as one of my cute flaws and move on!) Soooo....we looped BACK through Georgetown, approached Connecticut Ave. via K Street and shot straigh up Connecticut to Woodley. It was all good. We completed our outing with a nice heavy Mexican lunch washed down with a few Pacificos (yeah, I didn't even drink American beer!) in Cleveland Park.


The little Diva had just been sobbing because another group of older kids beat her to the Panda statue for photos. She just wailed "MY TURN, MY TURN" until they scattered. You can just see that now I got my way look on her face below.
Bomb Pops, which are now apparently called Missile Pops = Biggest. Mistake. Ever. Leila and I often eat a standard single popsicle on these warm nights outside on our stoop immediately before bath time, and I thought this couldn't be much more messy. It looks innocent enough here, but moments later, her entire torso and hands were stained smurf blue and she had red stripes along the lenghth of her arm. I don't exaggerate!