Memorial Day Weekend Part Two

After recovering from the turtle hunt, we decided to head the National Zoo. Jackson was amazed to see all the animals actually come to life. He greeted each animal in their "native language" and was so excited about meeting each of them. The first stop was the elephants. These elephants were a little bit bigger than Buurrr, but still just as cute!

Across from the elephants, Jackson found and quickly fell in love with one very large hippo! For the rest of the day all we heard was, "hippo, hippo, hippo." (Quick hippo facts: Did you know that a hippo can hold his breath for up to 5 minutes, and a sleeping hippo can just rise to the surface to breathe without waking up?) Next came the pandas. These particular pandas are on loan from China until at least 2010. When we lived in DC before Tian Tian and Mei Xiang were trying to have a baby panda, and it was on the news pretty much every day. After several failed attempts, Momma Panda was finally preggers. On July 9, 2005 Mei Xiang gave birth to a bouncy baby boy name Tai Shan! He will be heading back to China sometime after his fourth birthday in 2009. It was so much fun to finally see the happy Panda family! Since Jackson couldn't give the actual pandas a kiss, he did the next best thing . . .


All in all it was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I am sure that we will be heading back real soon to see the beloved hippo once more!