Trip to Washington, D.C.

I took the boys to visit friends in northern Virginia over the fourth weekend in January. We made a brief, cold, hilarious excursion into Washington, D.C. while we were there. Overall, it was a wonderful time with dear friends, and a memorable visit to our nation's capital.

Andrew and Keris on the Metro. Riding the train was without question the highlight of Andrew's entire trip. Monuments & museums--not so much.

A.J., Jack, and Evan on the Metro. 

Linda and me on the Metro, as photographed by Evan. Little did we know what adventures lay ahead.

Turns out it was COLD (and wet, though not actually raining) on the Washington Mall. The kids were freezing. And quickly miserable. And tired of being outside. Here Andrew demonstrates the end of cheerfulness.

 

Monuments, Schmonuments--The highlight for the kids was the squirrels who eat Cheez-its. 

Evan was very moved by the Korean War Memorial. 

This was Evan's favorite soldier in the Korean War Memorial. After our stop here, we all kind of resembled this guy: 4 out of the 5 kids were crying, and the 2 moms felt very tired and heroic. Andrew was crying because he was out of Sun Chips, Keris was crying because she was cold, Jack was crying because the geese had flown away, and Evan was crying about the horrors and injustice of war. It had taken us 2 hours to get from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. We decided to call it a day and head home!

Catching up on January

My work schedule picked up and got busy and I'm behind on the blog. We've had lots of wonderful times with friends the past few weeks that I don't want to forget to record!

Our dear friends the Jantzes visited us over the third weekend in January. We were friends in Germany, and then we moved back to the U.S. at the same time--we moved back to North Carolina, and they moved to South Carolina. They are moving to Japan in a few weeks, so we were thankful to spend some great time with them before they are too far for a road trip visit!

Dave and Steve went to the Duke v. Wake Forest basketball game, and we watched it at home with the kids. There was lots of cheering, "Let's Go, Duke!"

Our gorgeous January weather meant some fun play dates outside. We had so much fun at a park with Andrew's friends John and Michael. They are moving to Ann Arbor next month, so we enjoy all the fun times with them before they head north. 

Conversation with Andrew

My conversation with Andrew after preschool yesterday:

Me: Who did you play with today?
Andrew: Well, officially I played with Jonathan.
Me: Did you eat your lunch at Lunch Bunch?
Andrew: Mommy, I don't remember. That was way too long ago. [It had been about 10 minutes.]
Me: What else did you do today?
Andrew: (With a deep, exasperated sigh) Mommy . . . I'm so boring of this.

Hazy Shade of WInter?

Dave was working all day on his dissertation, so we had to find ways to entertain ourselves without him. The boys went on a pine cone hunt, and then we spray-painted them. Then Evan arranged them in my pitiful-looking planters that I never got spruced up for winter. But now they look quite festive! (And it was over 60 degrees here today!)

First Basketball Game

Evan's first basketball game was very fun--and as Dave noted, it actually resembled a basketball game!

The cheerleaders were adorable.

Prayer at half-court before the game

Evan and the Huskies

Evan getting ready for some defense.

After some good churching and some good relaxing, Dave and the boys made some flatbread pizzas from a recipe that Evan found and copied.

Snow Delay Morning and Family Night

Yesterday they forecasted the slight possibility of a 1/2 inch of snow this morning. When we woke up, there was no snow--but there was a 2-hour delay for Evan's school, and Andrew's preschool was cancelled. So we enjoyed a morning of Lego Star Wars instead. Not a bad way to start a Friday, really.

This evening was supposed to be our family night. Dave and Evan made pizza from scratch--but then our oven broke. Thank God for a microwave with a "bake" function--the pizza was great. During Bible story time, Dave asked Andrew a question that he answered correctly.

Dave: "Good job, Andrew! You were listening!"
Andrew: "I know everything!"
Dave (suppressing laughter): "Well . . . not everything."
Andrew (with a slightly exasperated sigh): "Just everything about the Bible, Daddy."

Homework

Before Christmas break, Andrew's preschool teacher sent home a note saying that in the new year the kids would start having homework. This elicited a deep groan from me, as I do not associate "homework" and "my child" with "happy family times." She assured us parents that the kids usually enjoy homework and it's nothing strenuous. I was still skeptical.

Today Andrew was indeed very excited that he had homework. Not only that, but Evan was also excited that Andrew had homework. And they were both ecstatic that they could work on homework together! Evan sat without argument and did his spelling and math, and Andrew sat cheerfully practicing drawing straight lines.

And here the happy tale starts to go awry--not because of the boys, but because my Saga of the Camera continues. I actually did remember to take pictures of this moment, thinking that some cute pics of the boys earnestly working away would make a nice complement to this blog post. I found my camera. I took some very adorable pics. I tried to upload them to the computer. Nothing happened. After 40 minutes of trying, I'm just posting this entry with an old picture. At some point, I'm hoping that the blog writing and blog pictures will actually match.