Monthly Meeting at the Zoo! And fireworks with cousins and other shenanigans

So when my friends and I all graduated from college (over about a 3 year span), we decided that we needed to get together once a month to hang out. We were/are spread over Blacksburg, Richmond, northern Virginia and Durham, N.C. It shouldn't be that hard to get together once a month right? Well the best of intentions, we weren't too bad in the beginning, but then we got super busy and it became we only got together when someone was getting married. So I attempted to gather the group for a "monthly meeting" in northern VA since I'm moving to Atlanta in a month and a half, and Will is moving to Sweden, and several people graduated, and Cecile and Matt had a baby last year... we were overdue for a hangout session.

So a bunch of us: Stefanie, Becca, me, Kate, converged on Karen's condo and spent Friday night sort of sleeping on sofas and air mattresses. Will was awesome and got us donuts in the AM and we left for the metro around 9, to go to the zoo! Pandas were number one on the list, but we managed to see at least 2/3 of the animals before we almost passed out from walking around in 90 degree weather.

Garth met us in the bird house, and Larom and Jennifer met us outside the birdhouse, bringing our total to 9.

Cute baby Flamingo! And Garth insulted the flock of Flamingos and half of them stood up and looked at him, which was really funny.
Sleepy tiger.
Panda! There was another panda nomming branches that was hilarious too.
Phant! I've seen an elephant pick up water with its trunk and cool off by splashing himself. I've never seen one walk all the way under water and use it's trunk as a snorkel. It was really neat to watch!
The group minus Will who was taking the picture. We also saw an octopus feeding, lots of monkeys and gorillas, small mammals, zebras, and various other things. No giraffes, they were shipped to Florida while the zoo renovates the elephant house. Oh well, next time!
Zoo!

After zoo-ing, we grabbed slurpies at a well placed 7-11 and headed back to Karen's for showerage and figuring out where to eat-age. We decided on the cheesecake factory and were joined by Julie and Evan, two of Becca's friends Kate and Scarlet, and Cecile, Matt, and almost one-year old Emma. We totaled 15 1/2 :o)

There was delicious food, lots of catching up, and lots of holding and passing around Emma.

She is SOOOO cute!!
She's not sure what to make of Larom though.
Kate held Emma for most of the meal and loved it :)

Afterwards we took a group picture and headed in some separate directions.

I wound up goofing around at Karen's for a few minutes before heading to mom's house around 10:30.

Sunday I went to church and saw lots of YG kids fresh back from 2 weeks in Ecuador. Had lunch with mom at Silver Diner, and then passed out for a few hours in the hot afternoon.

I parked at ABCD's (my aunt, uncle, and 2 cousins) house and walked to the Gaithersburg fireworks with Charlie and Allison. It was great to just chill with them and talk for about as hour as we ate the picnic my mom had packed and waited for the sun to go down. We bopped along with the band when we moved closer to it, and then watched the fireworks with patriotic music blaring from the band stage, which was kind of cool.

Monday I got to hang out with Babs, fresh back from 5 weeks in Belize, for several hours. It was awesome. And then I drove back to Blacksburg and actually didn't die in traffic, huzzah!