Washington DC Installment #3

So with pink eye under control (after three rounds), ear infections getting better and much less coughing and laundry in our house, I now have time to actually do a real post on the last leg of our DC road trip.

On our last leg, we went to visit Uncle Steve and Aunt Mishay (April's brother and sister-in-law). They were so sweet as to jump right in and do the kid thing with us. We went to a children's museum, a park, on a picnic, dyed eggs, hunted for eggs, and ate easter lasagna - I don't have a picture but you should all be very jealous! We are also total losers b/c we did not take a picture of all of us with Steve and Mishay. Lame. But here are some of the pics we did take!

Here is Nate dying his egg with tissue paper. Spray with water, apply tissue paper and the dye transfers by morning. Cool stuff.

Nate and Elin on a climbing wall. No wondering why they are both in gymnastics.

Elin loved picking corn at the museum! Grandma Jan would have love the "fresh market" for the kids.

Saturday, we had a picnic in a park with lots of fun creatures. The snake did not want to get picked up as you can see from the bite mark on Jase's hand. He left the turtle alone :)

We dye some more eggs outside on the patio to save the house!

The lovely dye!
Photography ala Steve! Mom helping Elin with her eggs. She wanted a brown one for some reason.

Cute Mishay and Elin!

Two cute faces enjoying ice cream!

Easter morning we kept the kids at bay for an hour or so, but then they were about to burst- "Can we please go downstairs now!"

Elin with her treasure trove.

Nate and his stash.

The scenery was so lush and beautiful. This is on our way back home. We were sad to go!

Elin's School Pics :)

Elin was very excited last week to have her picture taken. Here are the results.

I made a messy!

So a few weeks ago Elin made a mess and she must take after Jason, because this really, really upset her. I thought something was really wrong from the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on. Here are the visuals.

Trip to D.C.- Installment #2

So after our fun day at the indoor waterpark, we trekked out to D.C. (with an inadvertent route through Pittsburgh which was interesting) and arrived that evening. We started our next day with a trip to the National Zoo- great zoo and awesome weather! In fact, we were treated to warm sunshine our entire trip- lucky!

Here are the rascals at the entrance of the zoo- they could've played on this sign for hours.

A bit sunny for Nate- his face made me laugh. Note the panda bear in the background.

Don't you feel like this some days?

This was essentially Elin's first trip to a zoo that she remembers- she of course loved it, wanted to take some animals home, pet the elephants... you know, the normal stuff.

"Whew... we need a break."

Next visit was to the Air and Space Museum. I'm not sure how much Elin got out of this, but Nate looked like he was in a candy store. Especially with the hands-on gadgets, most of which were over his head but he didn't care. He loved the rockets! He also saw a moon rock, Hubble telescope, space shuttle, etc... I was in a bit of heaven myself.

It still amazes me that we got this thing to the moon over 30 years ago- crazy!

It was very nice to spend some break time on the mall between the Washington Monument and the Capital Building- especially for the kids. Tons of space to run and play in the pebble walk-ways. When Elin first saw the Washington Monument, she said, "Look- A big pencil!"

Lunch break! As you can see, our days in D.C. consisted of a lot of breaks, a must if you have kids. We found this cozy garden behind the Smithsonian Institute- very quiet and relaxing.

Of course the kids loved the metro- especially underground. Not so much during rush hour, though.

And here's Elin after a long day of... oh wait, that's a T. Rex! We had a fun visit to the Natural History Museum. The T. Rex was a big hit.

Fossils, fossils, and more fossils! Here they're checking out how real scientists dig out real fossils.

Elin wouldn't let us miss the butterfly garden... and it was pretty cool. Butterflies everywhere, even landing in Elin's hair.

Nate's favorite part of the Museum... the Ecology section. And this was his favorite piece- a magnetic rock (struck by lightning).

Cool art! Of course, you can see Nate trying to climb the metal tree.

We found a real tree for him to climb.

We hit D.C. during the cherry blossom season... which is when the rest of the country decided to visit as well. The trees were beautiful, though, and almost worth the crowd!

We were so lucky to be able to stay at our friend's Kerry and Dave's home. It was a perfect place to springboard into D.C. while we visited. I've known Kerry forever (well, since high school, which is the same thing), and it was great to sit down and catch up with them, play some games, and eat Maggie Moo's ice cream. Kerry and Dave- you have a lovely family and home. Thanks again for everything!