All About the Animals

Ah, what a wonderful Labor Day weekend we've had to wrap up summer and kick off the fall! 

This weekend was so much fun, and we have pictures to prove it. Isaiah is all about animals -- mostly anything he can equate with marginal similarity to a dog or a cow, the two sounds he knows how to make. 

Dog: urf, urf, urf, urf. This would sound more like a grunt to the untrained ear.

Cow: Uooooooooo. To anyone else, this would sound like a ghost sound.

So we headed off to the National Zoo on Saturday afternoon to see real lions and tigers and bears, oh my! And cows.

See tiger just to the left of Isaiah. He put on quite a show!

The line to see the pandas was a half mile long. Suffice to say, this is as close as we got to a panda bear.

I was quite put out that Isaiah was learning about cows in a zoo. Then Brandon reminded me he doesn't have to learn about the Capitol in a history book. Point taken! Life is all about trade offs.

Today, we spent a beautiful afternoon downtown in D.C. Keeping in mind that Isaiah is all about animals right now, it was a quick easy decision to head to the Natural History Museum instead of the Air and Space Museum. 

The atrium of the first floor has one amazing life-sized elephant. He was fascinated! I think we could have skipped the zoo and seen the close-up animals at the museum and he'd have been just as happy. Never mind, nothing we saw at the museum moved...

Excuse the bad photography...you only get one chance at a first reaction and my flash was on the wrong setting.

I took this at the zoo....just kidding. 

Ok, violent, but he was interested nonetheless.

While nothing at the museum moved, the birds on the Mall definitely moved. Isaiah sweetly shared his goldfish with them. He also had a few himself. See entire hand plastered to mouth above.

Click on the photo below to link to a video. I could have posted this thing yesterday if I hadn't had so much trouble embedding a video. I give up. It's not that important. Today, being Monday for all practical purposes, is about substance, not style.

Be sure to listen for Isaiah to squeak like the birds...and look a little frightened when they actually come over to visit.  And yes, I wore the same shirt on both our weekend outings two days a part. I like it. It's soft and comfy. Don't judge. Please.

More, dad?

A pause for one photo? No.

Still no.

And still, no. But isn't this cool? Learning to walk on the National Mall!

To top off the day, Isaiah and I had a carousel ride on the magical Mall Carousel. It was made in the 1940's and has been in residence on the National Mall since the mid-1960's. Isaiah was rather solemn at first, but he loosened up in time to enjoy the music and the colors and to pat his horse a few times on the neck.

And today we welcomed fall with long sleeves and slow rain. The leaves will start turning soon and our basement is taking reservations for visitors!