Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother's Day, and we celebrated with a great brunch at McGinty's Public House, an Irish pub in Silver Spring.  It was another gorgeous day...not as hot as Saturday, but sunny with a nice breeze (as you can see in the picture above).

Grandma with her Peanut and Peanut Brittle

After brunch, we went to Fairview Park to play.  We were all needing a low-key day after three very busy days!
Greg surprised Mom and I with a fabulous chocolate peanut butter cake from Cakelove, an awesome bakery nearby.  The top candles are for Mom's 2 kids and the bottom candles are for my 2 and a half kids.
We had to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa that afternoon.
Our visit with them was tons of fun and we are so happy they came to see us!  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for everything!

Monuments and Memorials Walking Tour

Saturday started with a game of Simon Says on the lawn next to the Washington Monument.  It was a gorgeous day--finally!  We ordered tickets a long time ago to ride to the top of the monument and Lucy and Ella have been SO excited about it!

This is inside the monument, after the extensive security check waiting for the elevator and tour guide.
The top floor of the monument is 500 feet up and there are windows on 4 sides, facing north, south, east and west.  It takes the elevator only 70 seconds to get to the top!This is the north view, looking at the White House and the Ellipse.
Here's the view to the west, looking at the Lincoln Memorial, Reflecting Pool, and World War II Memorial.
After looking out the windows, we walked down a flight of stairs to wait for the elevator to take us down.  It was a short visit, but well worth it!
The Washington Monument started off our walking tour...
...the next stop was the World War II Memorial.  This was the first time that we were there among a big group of veterans, and it was pretty emotional.  We couldn't move on without a picture by the Wisconsin pillar.

From there we started the long walk around Tidal Basin to get to the Jefferson Memorial.  Although we missed out on seeing the cherry blossoms, the trees were very pretty.
The setting of the Jefferson Memorial is stunning.  Tom has a great view of the White House and Washington Monument.
Grandma and Grandpa helped the girls count the steps on the way up...I believe they said there were 40.We continued our walk around Tidal Basin to see the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.  It was beautiful!  There were statues, waterfalls, trees, and flowers...we didn't really know what to expect, and it was a great surprise. 
Here's Lucy and our Eleanor with Eleanor Roosevelt.  Turns out that FDR's mistress's name was Lucy, but there wasn't a statue of her at the memorial.
The girls were thrilled to finally meet Fala, FDR's dog.  In one of our books, Clifford the Big Red Dog Goes to Washington, Clifford meets Fala, so this was a highly anticipated event.
We stopped for a picnic lunch on the Tidal Basin walkway and enjoyed the shade and the view.
The next stop was the Korean War Veterans Memorial...again, a moving experience as there were quite a few veterans there.
This view from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial just doesn't get old, and it was especially gorgeous with the bright blue sky.
We were so close to having Abe all to ourselves for a picture...the memorial was packed, so this was the best we could do.
The back side of the Lincoln Memorial was completely empty and had a fabulous, much needed breeze.  We sat and enjoyed the quiet and cooled off for a bit.
Our last stop of the day was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

This is a little house that served as the Canal Master's quarters back when Constitution Avenue was a canal.  On our Duck tour, we learned that the Canal Master and his wife lived here with their 13 kids!  This fact really stuck with Lucy...out of the blue, she started telling my mom and dad about "the little cottage where a lot of people lived."  It took me a while, but I figured out that this is what she was talking about!  She was excited to show Grandma and Grandpa and had to have a picture with it.

We walked more than 6 miles and were out and about for 8 hours...needless to say we were exhausted.  The subway took us back to Silver Spring and we had a yummy Mexican dinner and Coldstone Creamery for dessert!

National Aquarium in Baltimore

The forecast for Friday was not very good, so we chose to drive to the Inner Harbor of Baltimore and check out the National Aquarium.  The weather ended up being beautiful, but the aquarium was great and the kids loved it!  It was very dark inside most of the aquarium, so we didn't end up with too many pictures.  Thanks, Dad, for using your camera so I didn't have to lug mine around!  I obviously didn't take the picture above...just thought you all should see how beautiful it is in the harbor!

Lucy and Ella standing by the jaws of a megalodon shark.

Here we are at the Dolphin Show, which the girls LOVED!

The main exhibit area sends you from floor to floor by moving walkways.  Each floor has tanks on the outer walls and has open areas in the center where you can look all the way down to the bottom floor into a huge stingray pool.
The very top floor is a Tropical Rain Forest, complete with waterfalls.  To get back down to the first floor, you walk down a zig-zag ramp that is completely surrounded by a four story coral reef tank.  Lucy started off the walk wanting to stop at every single window of the tank!  At the bottom there is an unbelievable shark tank and underwater viewing of the stingray pool.  Our timing could not have been better...just as we got off the ramp, we saw a scuba diver swimming to the window.  He started feeding the rays and put on an amazing show with them...the girls were mesmerized!

After a stop at the gift shop, we left the aquarium and had a late lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe right in the harbor.  If you look at the picture at the top of the post, you'll see the huge guitar to the left of the aquarium.  Mom, dad, and I all had burgers and the girls inhaled their macaroni and hot dogs--we were starving!  We thought for sure the girls would sleep on the drive home, but they stayed wide awake and managed to talk the entire drive through rush hour traffic...another day without a nap!

By the time we got home we were all exhausted...we gave the girls baths and watched Sleeping Beauty!  Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for another fun day!

Grandma & Grandpa Are Here!

My mom and dad arrived late Wednesday night...their flight was delayed and there was a huge rain storm, but they arrived safely at our apartment just before midnight.  After some ice cream and Idol results, we went to bed to rest up for the busy day ahead.

We started Thursday at the White House Visitors' Center, which is around the corner from the White House.  We got there just as the sun was coming out after walking for blocks in the rain!  The Visitors' Center was a little disappointing...it was just a big hall with a few exhibits and gift shop.  The girls had a great time at the coloring and puzzle station, but I guess I was hoping for something more.  Our next stop was the White House--this time we saw it from the South Lawn, which is much bigger than the North Lawn.  The grounds were gorgeous, and we saw Michelle Obama's garden.  Lucy wasn't impressed--she said, "It's not as pretty as I expected."  Ha!  
As we were walking towards the National Mall, we found that police were blocking off all streets that intersected with Pennsylvania Avenue.  Just as we got to the corner, this flash of cars and motorcycles and sirens shot by us...we can only figure that it was the President heading back to the White House.  It happened SO quickly, there wasn't time to even reach for the camera, but here's a shot of the barricade that was set up.
Just as we arrived at the Mall, Lucy sat straight up in the stroller and pointed to the Carousel, which was at least a block and a half away...she spotted it immediately and of course rides were requested.  Needless to say, Grandma and Grandpa obliged.

Our next stop was the National Air and Space Museum.  The girls have been looking forward to this one!
Here they are touching a piece of moon rock, or "Mr. Moon," as they like to call it.
There was a great kids area called "How Things Fly."  Lucy and Ella got to climb up and sit in the cockpit of a real plane.
There were a bunch of hands-on activities that kept them entertained...
Greg met up with us after his class--we kept on going right through nap and into the afternoon.  The girls were so excited to see him and tell him all about our day!
Here we are in front of the Spirit of St. Louis...this is pictured in a few of the books we have been reading, and therefore was VERY exciting to finally see!
We hit the gift shop for some souvenirs (Ella picked a pink bear named Cherry Blossom, Lucy chose a coloring book, and Greg and I got them both personalized dog tags), we walked to the subway.  Ella fell asleep on the way there, and we were just about to lose Lucy when we started talking about dinner.  As soon as Eggspectations was mentioned, she shot out of her seat and gave an enthusiastic, "Yeah, let's go THERE!!!"  
We had another great dinner and a couple of very tired girls by the end of the night!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in our lives...we really do love you and appreciate all you do!  

We have been VERY busy these past few days, and I have neglected the blog because of it.  I am hoping to update tonight or tomorrow morning and get caught up!  We have lots of great pictures to post and fun adventures to tell about.

Mail Madness

We had a spectacular mail day today!!!  The girls were thrilled when we opened the mailbox...we found postcards from Oma and Opa, a card and souvenir money from Great Grandma and Grandpa Kuff, a letter, stickers, and bookmarks from Great Grm and Grf, and a fun-filled package from my friends Kristin and Dan in Minnesota.  It was like Christmas!  Thanks so much to all of you...it really is fun to see how meaningful receiving mail from loved ones is to Lucy and Ella.  They can't wait to get their picture taken with it and say thanks.  Lucy immediately makes a mental checklist of who sent what so that she can send mail in return...it's all very endearing, and we appreciate your thoughts and effort.

One final note:  I just learned that postage rates are going up on Monday, May 11th.  First Class letters will now be $.44.  I thought I should pass on this helpful info so that your bills and other important mail doesn't get sent back to you for additional postage!

Countdown Tree Update 2

Grandma and Grandpa are coming TONIGHT!!!  Most likely they will not get to our apartment until 11:30pm or so, so the girls think that they are arriving tomorrow.  We are all SO excited!