Prepartion and Perspiration

We've been getting up and out of the house all June to get the miles in so we will be better prepared for our upcoming hikes we have planned during our trip. Once thing we can't do here is increase our elevation so hoping our lungs don't burst in when we get up higher.

Sophie is 11!

Sophie chose a party rather than the buy out for her birthday this year as she is a social butterfly. We tossed around a few different ideas but when it came time, she chose to take some friends to see Incredibles 2 followed by pizza at CiCi's! Neal was working that day so we finished the night with ice cream to honor our new 11-year-old.

For the Love of Legos

2,995 pieces and 1 1/2 weeks later--just look at that smile!

Father's Day

For Father's Day we surprised Opa by seeing him off for his 2-day Father's Day motorcycle ride with the Freedom Riders. Got to meet a few of his riding friends too. He was in a small accident the first day and got some road rash but continued his ride thanks to Advil, I'm sure.  Glad he returned home in one piece and with a good story to tell.

I used those fresh blueberries to bake Alton Brown's blueberry muffins for Neal's Father's Day.  They turned out really good which is a big improvement over the last time Neal tried making them with a oven that was near dead but we didn't know it yet.

Neal celebrated Father's Day by eating said muffins, attending church where he did not teach the kids but joined the men for a short lesson and treats, and napped a good part of the afternoon away, also known as "watching golf" in our house. We ended with his favorite: key lime pie. He is a terrific father and husband--anyone would say so, but most importantly, his kids and wife say so.

Blueberries

We joined our friends the Hancocks and Florciks for blueberry picking this year. We invited Oma to join us. We tried a new farm that was closer, Blase in Rockwall, but still prefer the one we went to last year. Still a good time, of course. We picked quite a bit fewer berries this year which was the right thing to do as we weren't planning on making jam. Poor Sophie was overcome by the heat becoming weak and pale so I piggy backed her to the stand while Neal ran and got more water from the car. After drinking and being cooled by a frozen berry pop, she became herself again.

great photo bomb by Anjuli

This Summer's First Trip - D.C.

We spent a week in DC. The kids and I had never been there and Neal was like 10 years old, maybe, when he went last.

The first day there we had time to check into our hotel and meet up with my friend from 5th grade onward, Angela, and her youngest daughter for delicious burgers and horrible service. Great company though!

The weather was great for the greater part of the week and we were able the dodge heavy rain for the one day it did.

Day 1: Hirshhorn Contemporary Art Museum and Air and Space Museum

Contemporary art is weird and that's why I like it.

Rhys really wanted to see the Wright brothers' plane since he learned about them in 2nd grade.

Problem: the cafe in the Air and Space Museum was closed and it was raining hard and you can't bring food in. Solution: we spent way too much on dark chocolate, candy peach rings, space shaped crackers (I know we don't really know the shape of space or that it does not have shape but think along the lines of space shuttles, astronauts, sun, moon...), and for protein astronaut cheese chunk food product. We found a place to sit down on the floor next to a wall in a common area and ate our "lunch" secretively. By the way, astronaut cheese is actually pretty good. Gasp!

Day 2: Monuments and Arlington Cemetery and LOTS of walking

Washington

Closed for repairs, but still tall

World War II

Reflection Pool and Lincoln

Taken from Lincoln Memorial

Vietnam

Tender moment here when a Vietnam vet who served in 68-69 was talking with one of the volunteers there and suddenly broke into nearly silent tears. His adult daughter just held his arm until he was composed again. Just witnessing that put a lump in my throat.

This and all gray squirrels in DC are named George. Just ask Rhys.

Memorial spanning behind

Korea

After being reverent for several memorials, we got our sillies out

Arlington Cemetery

Jefferson

F.D. Roosevelt

Creepy photo bomber

FDR looking a little green in the face

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Day 3: Capitol, Library of Congress, Japanese American (WWII) Memorial

Although we applied months in advance for tickets to tour the capitol building, it wasn't enough months in advance so we thought we'd explore the visitor's center and as luck would have it, Neal noticed the walk-ins line for the tour was very short. In 15 minutes we were on tour.

 

We went to the National Postal Museum because of my long lived love of snail mail and it wasn't great but I wasn't really surprised. Sophie said this one was her favorite but I think that's because the had a great kid's scavenger hunt, not for the content. They earned free postcards and postage to send off to some of their friends from the museum.

Great opportunity to teach our kids about the Japanese Internment Camps and how sometimes the American government/people get it wrong.

Korean noodle bowl

Day 4: National Museum of American History and National Museum of Art

We took a tour at the history museum and saw the highlights while getting some good background. I love tour guides!

Rejected Washington Monument, thank goodness

This sun stone caught our eye as we were on the tour so we came back to it.  On the original Kirkland temple.

The art museums gave us another opportunity to talk to our kids, this time about nudity. Artists like it.

This one was a winner based on the sheer amount of pit hair.

Sophie's favorite Still Life with Peacock Pie. She did an art competition a couple years ago and had to memorize many masterpieces of which we saw many.

My favorite. It just makes me happy.

Day 5: Air and Space Udvar-Hazy Center

Have I mentioned how amazing my husband is? Here's another reason I love him. The night before I am glued to HGTV because I don't get that at home, and Neal says I just looked up Uber and it's going to cost us over $100 to travel to and from tommorrow's air and space center (about 35 miles out of town). A few minutes later...There I just got us a rental car for $45. We walked to the nearby car rental and because we walked they took off another $5.  I can do $40 quite happily.

Neal and I joke about how many of these air and space centers and military related stops he likes to make and I, on the other hand, am good with MUCH less.  We got a tour guide for this one too and I'm so glad we did! It wasn't just plane upon plane but story upon story. I could relate to that. We stayed most the day and even watched airplanes tracked and taking off and landing from the tower.

Day 6: White House, Portrait Gallery, National Archives, Nationals baseball game

We actually did this day in reverse. We arrived at the Archives early only to find the line wrapped around the side and to the back so we decided to do the Portrait Gallery first and come back. However, the portrait gallery was closed upon our arrival and did not open for over an hour so we headed the White House Visitor Center and reversed it.

The White House was the #1 item on Rhys' D.C. bucket list

No photos of the Archive because you cannot take pictures but the Declaration of Independence is so faded it's pretty hard to make anything out. The Magna Carta from the 1200s is more legible.

Love our photo bomber

They lost he game but it was fun. It started to rain as we caught our Uber ride back to the hotel.

We were all tired after such a great week. The next morning we had a bit of time before going to the airport so we walked to the National Museum of the American Indian and learned how the American government's treaties went down the drain and we pushed out the native Americans. We arrived went straight to the info desk, told them we had one hour and asked what they suggest we do with it there. No pictures just lots of reading and another opportunity to teach our kids.

A totally great trip and wishing we had more time to learn more at almost each museum.