Embracing the Adventure

We had been saving the National Zoo to do with Grandma, because we knew that would be a fun thing to do with her. The zoo did not disappoint!  We saw an elephant training show that was really neat! Those elephants were so smart!  Elias got a kick out of this interactive display about learning about an elephant's health by investigating its poop...  The zoo had an orangutan baby born this year, and he was SOOOOO cute!! They have a research project with the orangutans where they are studying their ability to learn. They have a touchscreen and are using rewards to try to teach the orangutan to touch the numbers in order. She's doing a great job! And the baby enjoyed getting his grape rewards without even having to do any work! :)  Elias LOVED this water play area that was next to the sea lion exhibit!  It was not a particularly hot day when we were there, but Elias still enjoyed the misters.  He was all wet and sparkly from the mister! One o

My mom came to visit for a few days before school started, and so we enjoyed some sightseeing! We had purchased tickets for a city bus tour, and we thought we'd see quite a few sights. However, it was POURING rain that day, so most of our intended stops were out of the picture. Therefore, we decided to devote most of our sightseeing time to touring the U.S. Capitol Building. We still did our bus tour and saw some sights from the windows, but we didn't get any pictures because the weather was so yucky. We did enjoy the neat stories of our tour guide, and it was still worth doing even in the rain!  The Rotunda was amazing and beautiful! Our Capitol tour guide was quite the personality. He was able to fluently converse in the native language of every person on his tour, which in our group included German, Tagalog, and Korean! He also had quite a few jokes to tell, which Elias thoroughly enjoyed.  The original meeting room of the U.S. Senate. The original

Theodore Roosevelt Island seems to be one of the lesser-known attractions from the DC area, but it was really neat! It's only about 1.25 miles from our apartment, so we decided to hike there on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We enjoyed hiking the beautiful island as well! On the bridge across from Virginia:  The center of the island has a beautiful monument to Theodore Roosevelt: The monument contains several of Roosevelt's most famous quotes: The island itself is also quite large and great for hikes. We're glad we found this hidden gem!

We learned our lesson after doing the Air and Space Museum on a weekend, so Elias and I enjoyed the Museum of Natural History on a weekday. That meant Daddy couldn't join us, but Elias and I had a delightful time in the less-crowded museum. On the National Mall before entering the museum. That's the Capitol back there!  Smithsonian Castle:  Museum of Natural History:  Elias loved Henry the elephant!  Roaring with the African lion:  Look! A hyena!  Modeling panda ears in the gift shop:  Snarling with a black panther:  Carnivores!  Holding his breath underwater with the narwhal:  Help! I'm being eaten by a shark!  We found all of the fish from Finding Nemo in this aquarium!  The Hope Diamond: Elias loved the emeralds because he pretended to be a villager from Minecraft... "Would you like to trade?"  Gigantic purple quartz!  Elias spelunking in this huge rock:  Visiting a termite mound:  SpongeBob ice cream in the