National Zoo and "Baby" Tai Shan

Last week, in a break between bad weather we headed out to see "baby" Tai Shan, the Giant Panda. He was born at the National Zoo in 2005, and is being sent to China to be part of a breeding program there. He was quite a big deal around these parts, and they had tons of darling baby pictures, and so forth of him. I must say, he really was pretty cute! If you know my boys, then you know they are ALWAYS up for a trip to the zoo, so with their new favorite little buddy (Ryli, from down the hall) in tow we hopped on the Metro and hit the town!

We actually got there only like 10 minutes before they were closing the exhibit and getting ready to put him into his crate! Talk about just in the nick of time! The boys posed for you here in front of his crate. They dubbed his trip the "Panda Express".

Getting a tasty snack

His crate all ready to go inside his habitat. Witnessing history folks!

No trip to the zoo would be had without a trip to see the Zebras (Porter's favorite!)

There was a brand new baby gorilla named Kabibi, just born in the middle of January. She was SOOOOOOO cute! I had no idea they were so darling, and little. Seriously, it melted my heart. Ronan is twice the size of her in this picture. He kept saying, " cuuuuute". It is one of his new favorite words.

And a final shot of Tai Shan with his head in a box. I've heard he was quite the performer, being that he was used to lots of attention from the get go. There aren't too many pandas around, so we did enjoy ourselves, and the boys can't wait to go back!

p.s. the national zoo is quite large, with a lot of walking. So be prepared! We only did the first half. Next time we'll see the parts with the Lions, Tigers, etc.