A Visit with Nanny & Pop-pop

 

Spending time with our beloved Nanny & Pop-pop is so very precious to us! We were lucky to have two quiet afternoons to sit and talk and share. Nanny brought out the family photo album and went through all the photos with us. She is such a treasure of familial information! She and Pop have done extensive genealogical research and are full of stories about our family history and their lives growing up in Alexandria. We spent a lot of time talking and a lot of time giving hugs & kisses and just soaking up every minute of love we could get! Leaving them after our Labor Day visit is always hard because we know that we won't be back to see them until Memorial Day. We hope that all those hugs & kisses will last us until then...though they never do! Even as we pull away waving and calling "I love yous" out the car windows, I always want to go right back for one last hug.

 

Degen & Kyrie showed Nanny some of their favorite apps on the IPad!

Kyrie & Pop share a quiet hug.

Kyrie with Brinkley

 

Washington D.C.arousel

 

Before making our way back to the Metro to head out of D.C., we decided to stop at the carousel in front of the Smithsonian castle. There's nothing too fancy about the carousel, but it brought smiles to the kids' faces as they watched it spin. Darren bought us all tickets, and the kids were quick to find their favorite horses. Darren decided to ride on the sea dragon, which was the only one of its kind on the carousel, but... then a little boy walked up and was sad that he had not found it first, so Darren got down and put the little boy on the sea dragon's back. We had a great ride- a pretty perfect ending to our afternoon!

 

Darren & Degen exchange high fives before the ride begins!

Kyrie spent much of the ride concentrating on keep her heels down in the "stirrups" as she was instructed to do during her last riding lesson.

A Capital Idea: The Smithsonian

 

During our time so near Washington D.C. over Labor (& Memorial) Day, we make it a goal to do one family activity with the kids. In the spring, I brought up the idea of taking the kids to one of the Smithsonian museums, but we had a scheduling conflict that did not allow us the time. So, we were excited for our Labor Day trip and the opportunity to spend some experiencing our nation's capital. We took the Metro downtown and came out right on the capital mall with great views of the Capital Building and Washington Memorial. We found some shade (it was sunny & quite warm) in which to eat our picnic lunch before making our way to the Natural History museum. (We had debated which museum to go see with the kids and decided that the Natural History museum would hold their attention best.)

 

 

The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

 

 

 

Almost as soon as we got into the museum, we knew that we had made a great choice. Our first stop was the hall of mammals, which had nearly every sort of mammal you could imagine stuffed and on display. You would think that after so many trips to the zoo that the kids would not be that impressed with stuffed animals, but they loved it, especially Kyrie. We made our way from the mammals and through the ocean creatures (not spending nearly enough time at anything mostly because Degen was always wanting to get to the next thing). After the ocean creatures, we stopped to see all the dinosaur bones and displays. Darren & I tried our best to tell the kids about all the displays and give them the information in ways that they could understand. After the dinosaurs, we made our way to the insect exhibit and the small human skeleton exhibit. The cool thing about museums is you never quite know what is going to catch your kids' interests. For Kyrie, the human skeleton exhibit was it! She walked right past the mummies, but when we found some cases with real bones displaying various diseases or injuries, she wanted to know all the details.

 



 

After the insect & skeleton exhibits, we walked through the mineral & gem exhibit, which was very cool. It started with a lot of factual information about the earth and space and how things like meteorites and volcanoes helped to create some of the minerals & gems that we find on earth today. Rough looking rocks and minerals of every size & shape led into a gem room that amazed. Kyrie would look into each display case and exclaim about how some special gem would make the perfect piece of jewelry for me. The unfinished gems led into the National Jewelry exhibit, including the Hope Diamond. We had a really great afternoon, and look forward to making our way back to more of the Smithsonian museums in the future.

 



 

Picnic Portraits

 

Well, it just wouldn't be the start & end of summer without a few pictures from our favorite rest stop outside of Friendsville, Maryland! I love this picnic tradition and how I can look back and see these same photos with only us changing. Almost as soon as we pull into the parking lot, the kids are asking to race up the hill and explore the forest.This time around, we got some great family photos!

 

Lost Tooth Girl

 

Several months ago, Kyrie's top tooth started wiggling. She can be a bit particular about how she deals with her loose teeth, so we mostly let her be aside from asking her if she's been wiggling and checking for progress. For at least the last month, that top tooth has been very wiggly and seemed to only be attached on one side. Still, she wouldn't pull it. About once a day, I would ask her if she had tried to pull it and she would give it a small tug and announce that it wasn't ready yet. Last Wednesday during bath time with the new tooth clearly visible at the gum line, I asked if she had tried to pull it and she gave it a good tug and it plopped right into the tub. She immediately gave a surprised holler of "My tooth is out! My tooth is out!" as we fished it out of the water. Darren immediately came in to see and she flashed him her missing tooth grin. She was so proud of herself! She loved the feel of the open space in her smile and after her bath she ran to get a cup and straw so that she could drink through the gap! Before bed, she excitedly came into tell us that her other top tooth is now loose, too!

 

Our beautiful girl! She looks so grown up in this photo!

Kitchen X...Almost There!

 

By goodness, we are almost there! Here are the new pics, including the finished backsplash and our pulls. Even as I type this, the contractors are working away trying to finish this project. I think that we are all hoping that it will be done by Sunday afternoon when they stop by to finish up the backdoor. They have worked hard, and we are appreciative of all their efforts. We are planning on unpacking all of our kitchen boxes next weekend. Whew...and woo-hoo!

 

This picture has the knobs, but no handles on the drawers. And what kitchen picture would be complete without a random box of canned goods on the counter?!?