Bouncin' Fun

When we were in Colorado a few years ago, staying with my parents for 6 months, I took the kids to a few bounce places to play with their friends and cousins.

Afterwards, all my kids would start throwing up.  Every time we went.

It would start with one kid, and then cycle through the three of them.

I quit going.

So it's been almost four years since we've gone to a place like this.

I haven't missed it.

But one Friday morning a friend convinced me to take my kids to play.

They had fun, and thankfully no one threw up.

Molly and Katelyn.  Mason LOVES her friend Kay-Kay!

Mason, flying the plane.

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Colten, poor boy, along for the ride again.  Confined to his stroller.

Well, I guess we let Colten get out of his stroller.  Just this once...

I still don't know if I'm a big fan, but at least this time went well!

Cherry Blossom Extravaganza!






This is what the Cherry Blossoms are supposed to look like.  We've had such a cool spring this year that the trees were barely blooming on the first day of the festival, thus no pictures of our own. 



Our last day with the Stones was jam-packed with tons of things to do.

It was the first day of the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC, so we planned to ride the metro downtown and go to the National Building Museum, and the back to the monuments to walk around and see the blossoms.  After that we stopped in Alexandria, rode the Trolley up King Street and met up with some more Tucson friends for dinner before heading home.

Whew!

A big part of the Festival for kids was held in the National Building Museum.  Schools and businesses set up booths where kids could learn about Japanese culture and make some crafts.

No surprise, it was packed!

And extremely warm.  I suppose it's a good thing that Colten is still stroller-bound, so that everyone has a place to dump their coats!  I don't think he minds, though.

After we crafted our hearts out, we hopped back on the metro, bound for the National Mall and the Washington Monument.

The kids did super with all the walking they did!

We had such a beautiful day, but a little chilly.  I suppose we can be grateful for the exercise to get our blood moving.

From the Washington Monument you can see a lot of the main DC sights; the White House, Capital building, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and across the river to Arlington.

After gathering our energy, and escaping the wind at the Washington Monument we set up for the Lincoln Memorial.  It's probably about a mile walk in between the two, and very pretty.  Unfortunately the reflection pool is under construction, otherwise it would have looked a lot better.

All the kids (minus Colten) lined up on the steps:  Seth, Jonas, Ashton, Cayden, Mason, Lillian and Maren, with Tina off to the side.

After seeing Lincoln, we headed back up to the metro stop.  On the way the kiddos needed a little break, so the stopped to climb all over this tree.

We took the metro back to Alexandria so we could meet up with another family from Tucson (I'm always amazed at how all the Tuscon people Andy grew up with stay in touch after so many years!)

We got off the metro with our hoard of kids, and then boarded the free trolley that takes you all the way up King Street.  I spent the ride looking out the windows and thinking about how much fun I could have shopping there!

We met up with another John and his family for a big pizza dinner.  Between all of us we had 12 kids.  YIKES!  They all did so well, all day.

After dinner, and saying goodbye to John's family we hopped back on the Trolley,

back to metro and then home.  It was a truly packed, busy and fun day.

We sure enjoyed our visit with the Stones.

We LOVE when ANYONE comes to visit us!

New Friends

The second day the Stones were visiting we went up to Mount Vernon.

George Washington was a pretty inspiring and innovative guy, and his home and grounds are beautiful, but since I was already pretty familiar with all of it, I just got to be entertained with all the kids.

Lillian and Maryn were inseparable throughout the visit.  They had similar likes and interests, so really had a grand time together.

Cayden and Seth are the same age and seemed to bond over their respective Pinewood Derby experiences.  It was so nice that there was actually another boy Cayden's age!  It seems like we are always surrounded by either girls, or boys a lot younger than Cayden.  That, combined with Cayden's independent personality generally leave him the odd man out.  So I was really happy that he had fun with Seth. 

Ashton, however, felt a little left out.  She's the social butterfly, and thrives on being the center of attention.

She had a few pout episodes.

I just thought they were funny.  We encouraged her to go join in, and eventually she did.

Playing Tourguide

At the end of March Andy's good friends, the Stone Family, came to visit us.

Andy's been friends with Jon since they were teeny, tiny little teenagers in Tucson, AZ together - almost 20 years ago - and has known Jon's wife, Tina, even longer.  I heard about the pair when Andy and I started dating, and met the two when Andy and I got engaged, and then Jon was the best man at our wedding.

I was always impressed that Andy and Jon stayed such good friends, despite Andy's family moving up the Colorado when he was in high school.

We've never lived in the same place as they, but have been able to visit a little; mostly while we were still in Colorado.  Ever since we got back from Hawaii, and the Stones moved to Illinois 4 years ago, we've been trying to set up a visit, but life (and lack of any real plans) always got in the way.

We were delighted, though, when they contacted us about driving East for their Spring Break to see DC.

They've got three kids, right about the same ages as our older three, and they all hit it off immediately.

Sadly, Cayden and Ashton were in school still, so we did our adventuring without them.

We first headed up the the Smithsonian and saw the American History Museum, Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum.

We've been to those many times, but it's always fun to go again with friends.

And they're free.  YEA!

At the American History Museum we got to see cool things like 3CPO and Dorothy's ruby slippers.

All the museums include some hands-on kid areas.

You just have to be careful, because you could get lost in them, and find that you've spent hours of your day there, without seeing anything else!

(This has never happened to us...)

My favorite part of the American History Museum was seeing the original Star Spangled Banner, which inspired Francis Scott Key to compose The Star Spangled Banner.

It was just amazing to me to see how big it it.  It is so threadbare, and pieces had been cut out of it as keepsakes 200 years ago, but it is the real thing.  The kids each seemed in awe, though the didn't really get the significance.

After lunch I had to head home to get Cayden and Ashton from school, but Andy took Jon and Tina to see the other museums.

 

 They enjoyed the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum,

and the mineral and gemstones.

They did a quick run-through at the Air and Space Museum before heading home and getting stuck in traffic.

Seriously, you can't have the true DC experience without getting stuck for hours in traffic.

National Air and Space Museum

It only took us almost 2 years of living in the DC area to figure out that there are TWO Air and Space Museums, and one of them is much better to bring children to!

So the other one is out by Dulles airport, and is basically a huge warehouse with a ton of planes in it.  Pretty cool.  The kids loved it; probably because there was lots of room to run around.

Anyway, we went to check it out with some friends on Martin Luther King day and had a great time.

Cayden was the most interested of our kids.  Sometimes he says he wants to be a pilot, like his uncle Joe (one of his THREE uncle Joes...), and sometimes he says he wants to be a scientist when he grows up.

The Enola Gay dropped the hydrogen bombs on Japan to end WWII.

Ashton was kind of a grump the afternoon we were there, so wandered apart from us, reading the signs.

Oh well.

Colten was cute (of course), and slept like the angel baby he is.

Here was our whole crew of kids, minus Colten (and plus Chris who was holding Isaac in place).

They are standing in front of the test shuttle, Endeavor.  This shuttle never actually went into space, but was used for all the training before they sent the actual shuttles up.

Attached to the building is 7-story tower (I think the height of an air-traffic control tower) where you can see the planes coming in to land at Dulles.  It was interesting being up that high and watching all the planes circle and land.

Not surprisingly, though, the kids' favorite part of this museum was a large TV that was set up on the floor, showing the footage from when Transformers 3 was filmed there last summer.

Ah, kids...