A Happy 14th Anniversary to Us...

Rob and I celebrated our 14th anniversary with child-free day in DC.  It was good fun and we did some things we'd never done before.  (Katy we used the walks cards you gave me, very fun).  We started at the Corcoran Gallery next to the White House, which was a nice small collection.  Although the contemporary art there seemed like rubbish to me.  They did have this very nice Sargent, who happens to be a favorite of mine.  He ususally did portraits so this beach scene was kind of unusual.

 This virtuoso sculpture was kind of cool:

 Next we made our way towards Dupont Circle and after a quick bite to eat at Pret headed for a walk through the Kalorama neighborhood which is filled with embassies and diplomats mansions.  Also Woodrow Wilson's home is there.

 The Spanish Steps in Kalorama:

 Embassies a plenty:

 This gigantic huge place (with gardens that appeared to take up several blocks) is the French Ambassador's residence.  I think he probably feels important:

 This sign struck as as funny.  We have dirty minds:

 This is the oldest house in DC.  It was moved from Massachussettes:

 We left that behind at Rock Creek Parkway and wandered through the woods on Lover's Lane to Dunbarton Oaks:

 After touring the museum we went around to the house and grounds of Dunbarton Oaks.  Some people had a lot of money.  The gardens at this place are scrumptious, and the pool was to die for.  it somewhat reminded me of Hearst castle.  Who has this kind of money?:

 These sculpture things were pretty cool:

 I heart zinnias:

After that we wandered through Georgetown and ate pizza at a fun pizzeria on M Street.  Happy anniversary to us.  14 years.  I know it's nothing when you are pushing 70 years of marriage like Rob's grandparents, but it's pretty respectable if you ask me.

First Days and Earthquakes

On Monday the three oldest kids went back to school.  Hooray.  Summer is great when you are on vacation but when you are home and sitting around and watching the Avatar series and making lots of messes, some mom's (Anna for example) get really anxious to send them back to school.  So anyway, Lucy started sixth grade at the middle school.  Exciting times.  Tucker started fourth grade and Anders' started third.  I don't understand how this is going so quickly.  And so, for first 2 days of school I worked like a madwoman to restore order to my home and dig myself out of the housework pit that summer vacation brought, with the hopes that I could actually focus on other things for a change.  So on Tuesday just as I was about to accomplish my goal, and I was standing folding laundry in my bedroom, the house started shaking.  Hard.  I had no idea what was happening at first but it eventually dawned on me that it was an earthquake and I didn't do anything I had been trained to do, like get in a doorway. I just kind of wandered around wondering what was going on.  Was the washer off balance?  Was there a tornado?  So meanwhile at the schools the kids were evacuated and left to sit in the hot sun for hours and since the phones were down I had no way of knowing this.  Finally a neighbor tipped me off and I went and picked up the boys who were SO EXCITED I had finally come to rescue them.  Kudos to whoever made them sit in the sun all day without water and didn't let anyone move to the shade.  Brilliant.  Anyway, the next day school was cancelled because this is Virginia and they cancel school for rain sometimes, and definitely in the case of harmless earthquakes.  So long long story short.  My house is a wreck again after one day of having the kids around and I have to start from scratch digging myself out.  Grrrrrrrrrr.  And, just so Clara doesn't get left out of the post her first day of dance was yesterday.  She is taking from Steph, a lady in the ward, who is awesome and just opened a new studio.  Clara, of course, was happy to pose for some pictures.

Wicked!

Courtney and I got to take Lucy to see Wicked at the Kennedy Center.  It was the first time Lucy has seen a big production musical and it was so incredibly fun.  It was my first time seeing Wicked and I loved it.  It was the best to watch Lucy's face light up and see her be blown away by the show.  She told me, "I didn't know they did play's like this!"  And how awesome that we got to see at the Kennedy Center?  My only regret was I didn't take the boys.  To make it up we have tickets for Les Miserable in September.  Yay!

Williamsburg Family Vacation: In Two Tries

The weekend after we got home Rob had a conference at a fancy resort in Williamsburg, so all went down.  While Rob was at the confernce the kids swam in the giant awesome pool.  That is until about 50, 50+ women invaded for some water fitness class.  The kids laughed pretty hard even though the fun was cut short.  Those water aerobic classes are pretty hilarious.  So we checked out of the hotel and hit the outlets and Target for a little back to school shopping.  Afterwards we picked up Rob and headed to the Yorktown Victory Center, which was kind of cool, but I wish we would have gone to the real Yorktown battlefield.  Anyway, we had fun, got rained out and headed to the delicious Saigon Pearl restaurant.  After we went to check into our hotel, and sadly I had made the mistake of booking it for the following Saturday night.  Yikes.  So we headed home.  Clara was kind enough to say, "It's okay, Mom, that you ruined our family vacation."

 The mighty James River:

 Sooooooo, the following Saturday morning we got up early and drove back down and headed to Virginia beach.  Anyone from here can attest that Virginia has TERRIBLE traffic.  A three hour drive ended up taking about four and a half hours.  Grrrr.  Anyway, we got to the beach, where half the population of the East Coast were also paying a visit (gotta love East Coast beaches).  Oh well.  The kids had a blast.  They boogie boarded jumped waves got covered in sand and had a great time.  Then, just as some rain clouds burst on us we packed up and headed to Williamsburg, where we had the hotel room.  The next day we went to historic Williamsburg.  It was great fun because we participated in a program called RevQuest, where we were spies trying to figure out which historical figure was going to be assasinated, where, and how.  There were clues, codes, and fellow spies hidden around Williamsburg and it was a lot of fun.  We got gold coins as our "major reward."  And that was our 2 weekend family vacation!

The prentice shop where we met with an agent to find out our mission:

 Clara the straggler:

 Waiting for the tour of the house of burgesses:

 The maze at the governor's palace:

 Cracking the final code:

 Our major reward: