Surprise Birthday Adventure, Part 2

As I mentioned yesterday, Doug coordinated this surprise birthday weekend with some of my dearest girlfriends (3 of my bridesmaids actually).  Their part of the plan was for Saturday and Sunday.  First, he made reservations for us all to meet up and have a girls-only (no kids allowed!) dinner at Founding Farmers on Pennsylvania Avenue.  I got to enjoy the walk from our hotel to the restaurant (at a very brisk pace because I was late!) to meet with Sarah, Annie and Jenny.  It was quite a reunion!  I've seen them all within the last year, but we probably haven't sat around a table together since my wedding, so it felt so special to be surrounded by such dear, quality friends for my birthday.  I really can't think of a better gift, that I could enjoy more.  

Thank you so much, girls, for coming into DC to be with me for my birthday celebration.  It meant so much to me that you would all work so hard to make this happen.  I feel so loved and appreciated and thankful to still be close to all of you!

That wasn't it though, the plan too was to then all meet up with our families at the zoo on Sunday morning so our kids and husbands could also get some social time (and we could have more time too!).  Before we headed to the zoo for the 10am meetup, our little family had "breakfast in bed."  Doug and the big boys walked to a whole grain French bakery (um, yes please!) to pick up some delicious muffins.  The boys then enjoyed eating them in our bed.  Let's just say it's a good thing we didn't have to sleep in it again.  It was a crumb fiasco.  I'd love to have seen the cleaning lady's face when she folded down the duvet to change the bed.  What a disaster!

Penn and Doug fared much better in the chair.  Handsome little duet, aren't they?

After a stressful pack-up, get through the shower, get kids dressed, etc. exit from the hotel we happily headed off to the zoo.  Phew!  It turned out that Sarah and Jenny couldn't make it back into the city that morning for the outing, but Annie, her husband, Elliott and daughter, Lucy did get to join us.  This was our first experience at the DC zoo and we loved it!  One of our first stops was the giant pandas because we don't have that animal at our zoo.  They were a lot of fun to watch because they are so cute and were very active this morning.  

Here's Lucy and Penn getting to know each other a bit.  Lucy was so enamored by Penn.  It was adorable.  She kept following him around and trying to get his hand so they could walk holding hands.  Precious!

I caught a picture of my zoo explorer boys.  Tavin's a little tired (the weekend of no naps and tons of exercise was definitely wearing on him at this point), can you tell??

Koen absolutely loves learning about animals and birds right now.  He was like a walking encyclopedia spurting factoids he'd picked up from books or his favorite TV show, "Wild Kratts."  I couldn't believe how much he knew.  It was like having a little tour guide along!  He was super excited to go to the Bird House and was so attentive to the different bird species.  It was really neat to see his interest level as I'm sure that many a 7-year-old boy could care less about birds and their intricacies.  Here he is at the burrowing owl exhibit.

We also spent some time enjoying the very active apes in their exhibit.  Penn was enthralled with them.  So many "oohs and ahhs" from this little one as he took in the zoo.  Hilarious!

Well, our boys were exhausted from the long weekend of so many fun things, so we ended up splitting up at the zoo a little earlier than planned.  Before leaving at noon though, I got a picture with Penn and Lucy (they are two days apart in age) and myself and Annie.  What a special thing to be with my friend and her little one!  Thanks for coming today, Annie, Elliott and Lucy!

We made great time back to Pittsburgh.  We ended up not even stopping for lunch since the boys were happy to just munch on snacks I had brought along.  We were home by 5pm and the boys were all down by 7:15pm.  Phew!  It was a very, very full long weekend, but so memorable, fun (a little intense at times with this energetic crew!) and special.  Thank you, Douglas, for giving me such a lovely birthday gift.  The last few days we've seen family, old friends, exposed the boys to new and important places and grown together as a family through yet another great adventure.  You can do this for my birthday anytime.  I won't return this gift!  Love you, Douglas!