Washington DC

The Washington Monuments and National Christmas Tree are pretty when lit up.

Kate & Kurt get to know Haggis the new addition to their family - he's an 8 week old English Springer Spaniel.

A cute little house.

I took Haggis for a walk but he got a little dirty with the dirty slushy remains of the snow so then we had to give him a bath.

Haggis liked playing with Kate's hair.

How cute....

Given how small he was Haggis was quite happy playing in the deep snow.

Opening our Christmas presents on Xmas morning - Haggis needed no help working out how to get into his and I was happy with my supply of chocolate :-)

Christmas Dinner - Kurt got to pull his first Christmas Cracker but he thought Kate and I were joking when we told him he had to wear the paper hat all through dinner - obviously! not a US custom!!!

Haggis playing with the Christmas presents that I had gotten him - I had ordered them on line and not paid attention to what size they were so when I opened up the box I had a good laugh at the size of the toy bone but it didn't seem to stop Haggis!!!

Puppy nappies - what next???

Walkies......

We went over to Christens house for another Christmas lunch and Kurt was again made to wear his Christmas hat :-)

Christen had made some cute place tags with everyone's photo but as she didn't have a photo of me she improvised and used her artistic talent - it's better than my passport photo!!

Another sunny day so I went to the Zoo which as part of the Smithsonian museums is also free!! This Cheetah must have been a bit hungry as she was pacing up and down her enclosure at the side nearest the Zebras.

A Maned Wolf - these are native to South America though pretty rare these days.

These little Red Panda's were very cute especially the little guy who kept posing for photographs.

This napping Giant Panda obviously couldn't get comfortable as she kept changing position.

Whilst this one was having his exercise time in his enclosure.

Who are you looking at???

The Great Falls on the Potomac River sit with Virginia on the south bank and Maryland on the north.

Haggis practices walking down stairs.

He likes to sleep with just his back legs in his bed!!

For a small pup he chose a big stick to play with.

Afternoon naps.

There are some huge houses in DC.

New Year party at Kate & Kurts was fun - caught up with some of the guys I had met on my last visit and at K & K's wedding last year.

Amazingly enough Haggis slept through most of the party.

Haggis couldn't understand why Feliz was not part of his toy collection!!

Though I tried to hide Haggis in my rucksack he wasn't having any of it and was insistent he was staying with his new mum and dad so I had to be happy with one last Haggis cuddle before leaving for New York.

One more update to go.........