Cousins!!!!

Maren and Gavin (my sister and her husband) came to Virginia.  Gavin's parents live in Richmond so they flew out for a Young family Christmas.  We were lucky enough to get them for a weekend (and we will see them some next week too).  The second they got here we drove up to Manassas for a showing of Tangled!  Great show.  

 When we got back to the house we fed the kids smoothies and pizza, made them pose for a photo, and then the grownups went to mainstreet for dinner at the Black Bear Bistro.

 The next morning we drove into snowy DC for a day of city fun. It was very festive with the snow.  Our day began with a quick peek around the Smithsonian Castle and then we headed to the Air and Space Museum.

 (LOVE the winterberry trees)

 In the Air and Space Gavin enjoyed the control deck thingy stuff on the airbus plane.  This is because he happens to work with Honeywel/Airbul getting these things designed.  I'm impressed. 

 After the Air and Space we split up.  The Dad's and kids headed back to the cars to move them (3 hour parking limit) and to eat the lunches they had packed.  Maren and I headed to her fav, Pret.  The walk through the "city sidewalks dressed in holiday style" was great.  We sat in the corner window and admired the boots of all the busy shoppers.  There are some cute boots these days and I want me some of them. 

 We met back up at the National Gallery.  We missed out on a feeding of the birds session.  Apparently they began feeding the birds and a sparrow flew into the van.  Anyone seen the Modern Family episode where the pigeon got in the house and Mitch went ballistic?  I can relate to Mitch and I am glad I missed that one.  Anyone spot Clara and Rob throwing snowballs?

 We were very pleasantly surprised to walk right into a beautiful Christmas Choral concert in the rotunda of the National Gallery.  That is one of the most beautiful spaces and it was pretty amazing filled with Christmas music.  Very festive.

 As we were wandering through the gallery a group of very aggressive Asian tourists were taking lots of pictures and pushing people out of their way.  This was very annoying.  So I began to walk in front of the paintings they were trying to capture just to thwart them.  (They were being terribly rude so I felt justified).  Anyway they suddenly caught sight of the very darling blonde baby Beck and started taking pictures of him.  Then they very aggressively pushed Maren away and took over the reigns of the stroller.  I was laughing so hard I didn't get a picture.  In all the confusion Gavin forgot Harry who was sitting in a different gallery in his stroller....anyway the whole affair was rather entertaining. 

 The last stop of the day was a quick and cold visit to the Lincoln memorial. 

 The next day, after church, we feasted on Brazillian food (in honor of our Dickie roots).  Some of us were a little less than pleased about the feast.

 We then kept tradition alive by making the Ringer's Christmas cookies.  Everyone had a blast sculpting the dough.  Sadly the cookies are more fun to make than to eat.  

We loved having the cousins and can't wait until the next time we get to see them!

Decking The Halls

We decorated our tree the first weekend in December.  Or was it the second?  I can't remember.  Everything is a blur these days.  Anyway we began the day by walking up to Old Town for the Warrenton Christmas Parade.  It is a long parade and we got too cold to stick it out.  We took off after we saw our ward's float.  We then loaded into the car and drove out to Rixeyville, Va to Oak Shade Farm to pick out a Christmas tree.

 Oak Shade farm is beautiful with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background.  I also love the winter berry trees.

 We walked around for awhile until we found the right one:

 Rob cut it down with Clara's supervision:

 While they were tying the tree to the top of our car we went in the barn for free cider and cookies.  And we also got to pet and hold the baby bunnies.  They were very sweet.  Clara named the one she was holding Spot.  It was confusing because it was brown with no spots at all:

 Back home I prepared the "decorate the tree" feast and Rob put the lights on the tree at the risk of bleeding to death.  That tree has ferociously sharp needles!

 Another successful year of decorating the tree!

Katy's Trip: Arlington National Cemetary

For our last and final adventure (sad) Katy, Clara, and I went to Arlington National Cemetary.  It really is a cool place and it is a bit mind blowing to see soooooo many headstones all lined up.  Anyway, my favorite part was the Lee Mansion where Robert E. Lee lived.  It's the nicest of all these slaveowner mansions (montecello, mount vernon) as far as houses go.  They are about to do some major restoration work so it was all cleared out so it was just the bare bones, which was pretty nice too.  I will admit the gravity of the changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier is a bit ridiculous.  I'm definitely not someone who loves military rituals much.  It makes me want to giggle.  Anyway, we had a lovely final day.  I want Katy to move here.  So Katy get on it okay?

Katy's Trip: Our Super Awesome, Way Fun Day in DC

We began this totally awesome day by commuting into DC with Courtney which was good fun.  Well good fun in that we got to peek into the way she spends about half of her life (stuck in traffic).  She dropped us off and we headed to Lafayette Square behind the White House.  Lovely.  There are lots of places to explore here but they were still closed because it was early.  It was quite nice, because Katy bought me these cards with DC walks on it and so as we walked we read about what we were seeing in true tourist fashion.  It was terrif.

 We then went to say hello to the Obama family at their home, but I think they didn't know we were there because they didn't come out to say hello.

 So we went around back and tried our luck there.  No Obama's but Michelle's kitchen garden was worth the walk:

 And then of course we took some jumping pictures, and this is where things get really interesting.  As we were admiring the White House, Katy and I began to discuss how much we love London.  And suddenly this man with a British accent asked us to take a picture for him.  And he was kind of laughing because he had heard us pining away for the mother country.  And so we took his picture and he began to strike up a conversation, but Katy, afraid of love or something abruptly turned away and began walking in the opposite direction.  And that is when Katy officially missed her big chance.  I really think he was the one.  I do.  It was so sad, and we were both really bummed for a second.

 So to cheer Katy up after losing in the game of love, we walked to the Daughter's of the American Revolution building and went in to see the Period Rooms:

 When inside we went into the ball room, or as us Anglophile Austen fan's like to call it, the assembly room:

 Then we were going to go to the Corcoran which, like me, is "dedicated to art".  Except on Monday's when it is closed.  Oh well.

 So we high tailed it to Pret for a delicious pain au chocolat, and lunch to go.

 Just around the corner from Pret is Ford's theatre.  We ducked in and got tickets for the tour.  The last time I was there we caught the tour at the last minute and I didn't realize that there is a pretty awesome Lincoln museum in the basement.  Very worth a visit.

 We then did a run through of the American/National Portrait Gallery.  We saw the tinfoil altar, and the oh-so fabulous Normal Rockwell exhibit.  Katy wanted to see the Shepherd Fairey Obama portrait as she had done a paper on him. It was super cool.  And the coolest thing is how he is a street artist and getting his work to go viral is what he is all about.  Amazing the power his work of art had and how it went hardcore viral.  It was cool to see it live and I was glad Katy took a forbidden photo of it.

 Next we booked it to the mall to eat our Pret lunches.  As we were rushing past the archives we saw this falcon or hawk eating small bird.  It made us happy we were eating brie and basil on baguettes instead of sparrows.

 We ate our delish lunches and then hit up the Air and Space museum.  Katy observed, if you are into aviation this must be the coolest place on earth.  I am not as in to aviation that I think that, but it is pretty cool.

 Then we hailed a taxi and climbed in, directing the driver to take us to the National Cathedral.  We found that our taxi driver was a rabidly anti-Obama man who insisted on talking politics with us.  I wonder if he feels like a Fox news commentator and talks conservative politics all day every day with whomever he has trapped in his taxi. We just nodded and laughed and listened to him as he went on and on.  It was entertaining.  We were pretty happy to get out though.  And we jumped for joy:

 After a delightful self-guided tour of the cathedral we went to the Bishop's Garden.  I sat in rapture under this amazing holly tree:

 I stopped to smell the roses and Katy saw a photo-op and made me hold the pose until I was laughing and the picture turned out kind of silly:

 We then walked from the Cathedral to Georgetown (which is kind of a longer walk than I had remembered) and admired the amazing real estate:

 Katy honed her chess skills on the Georgetown campus:

 We were happy to warm ourselves and rest our dying feet as we waited to meet up with Courtney and Nate for dinner on M street (It was nice for Rob to have a night off of the sister wife thing, and it was nice of Nate to step in.  He handled himself very well and we decided he could hang out with us more if he wants to). 

 Katy made a special request.  She wanted to return to the Lincoln monument when it was lit up.  So we did and had fun being in Katy's ghost pictures:

 We decided, as long as we were seeing everything we may as well see EVERYTHING, so we walked to the FDR monument which I had no idea was there.  It was pretty cool and really big.  And then Nate and Court took pity on us and went to get the car.  

 While they went to get the car we pressed on to the the Jefferson.  The sky was gorgeous.  I am sure it is a combo of city lights and pollution that gives it that orange glow, but it was pretty nonetheless.

 Katy fell in love with another founding father (George Mason).

 This is where I collapsed in utter exhaustion in the Jefferson memorial.  Man my feet were in pain. 

I triple dog dare you to pack more into a single day than we did.  It can't be done.  I'm sure of it.