Summer Fun #3

One of the downsides, and there really aren't many, of living in DC is the tourists.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a tourist a lot of the time.  I support travel and tourism, both figuratively and literally.  Really, I think traveling to see places you might otherwise just read about is essential and it is one of my absolute favorite things to do.  But, I prefer, when possible, to travel off-season.  It is so much more enjoyable that way, for the tourists and the locals.  Disney World in January is ideal.  Paris in October is perfect.  London in February, though chilly, is far better than a summer time visit.  DC, understandably, is a major travel destination and from mid-April (beginning with the cherry blossoms) until Labor Day is teeming with tour buses.  We go out of our way to avoid the major sites because they are overrun with tourists.  I appreciate that people want to see this city and soak in the history of it all, and I understand that summer is the best time for most people to do that, but being a local, sometimes it is just plain annoying.  Especially on days like today.

Today the mercury shot up to its highest point of the year so far.  The heat that has plagued the rest of the nation finally arrived in DC and at 11 am the temperature was well into the 90s.  UGH!  Certainly we have been expecting summer, but it arrived with a vengeance today.  And, with heat like that, our options for diversions are limited.  Sure, there are a gazillion museums we could visit, but they are packed to the gills with visitors, making them crowded and unpleasant.  And, there are federal buildings to tour, but again, the lines to get in snake around the block because the tourists too are desperate for relief from the deadly combination of high heat and equally intense humidity that characterizes summer in this city that was, foolishly, strategic considerations aside, built on a large tract of swampland.  And, we could hit the pool.  But, our community pool requires adults in the water with less than stellar swimmers, like mine, and trying to monitor Claire and the boys at the same time around water sounds like a recipe for disaster.

So, we had to get creative.  And, thankfully, our efforts paid off.  We stumbled upon a nearly deserted spray park just minutes from home where the boys frolicked in the water until they could frolic no longer and then headed to the playground for even more amusement.  Claire and I spread out a blanket under the trees and soaked up the cool shade while the boys danced and played, completely oblivious to the sun beating down on their increasingly (despite slathering them with sunscreen any time we go out) freckled, little faces.  It was fun, which was, after all, the point, and with the heat likely to be sticking around for awhile we'll be going back, often.

 

Summer Fun #2

The lesson from day #1 painfully and indelibly learned, day #2 of our endless summer of fun dawned with a plan.  We piled in the car at a reasonably early hour, okay is was 10:30, but, hey, that's reasonable for vacation, and headed to, wait for it....IKEA!  Okay, I know what you're thinking...IKEA!?!?!  But, you are only thinking that if 1) you have never been to IKEA or 2) you have never been to IKEA with, and this is the important part, potty-trained children.  Because if you have, then you know all about

 Småland.

Småland is dubbed, by the ingenious IKEA folks, "the magic forest."  I've never been past the child-sized entrance so I cannot speak to what happens inside Småland and whether or not it lives up to its name, but if the excitement that exudes from my children at the mere mention of IKEA is any indication, it is indeed magical.  For 30 to 60 minutes, depending upon how crowded they are, your child, again, as long as he or she is potty-trained (no pull-ups allowed), can play to their hearts content under the supervision of IKEA staff.  You, the parent, can then visit the showroom, marketplace, and/or restaurant unaccompanied.  Did you catch that, UNACCOMPANIED shopping!  I KNOW!  Everybody wins.  

And, though unplanned, kids eat free at IKEA on Tuesdays, so after mine had worked up a good lather, and I mean this literally (it was actually kind of gross), I dried them off and we headed to the restaurant where we stuffed ourselves on ridiculously cheap (mostly free, in fact) chicken strips, mashed potatoes, Swedish meatballs, Lingonberry juice, macaroni and cheese, and mixed vegetables (yellow carrots, another indicator of IKEA genius, my kids yummed them up purely because of their novelty).

After eating ourselves into very satisfying food comas, we made a pit-stop at the strategically placed toy department adjacent the restaurant.  Those IKEA people really are brilliant, you can't get out of the store without passing through the extremely enticing aisles of kid friendly wares.  And so, after much hemming and hawing and debate we found ourselves the proud owners of these,

 

and one of these (in white - and yes, they are RATS!),

and one of these, because the little, white baby rat needed a big, white daddy rat, of course.  YUCK!

  
Plus, I managed to find a few must have things that I didn't know I needed before my almost-solo (I still had Claire with me) turn through the racks and bins that make up IKEA.  In fact, I do not frequent IKEA all that much, but on this day, including travel time, our visit spanned over 4 hours and everyone was happy the ENTIRE time.  Souvenir rats notwithstanding, ours was a wholly successful expedition.

Summer Fun #1

So, have you been enjoying my brother, Lance's, posts about his travels in Taiwan?  Kind of makes me want to take a trip there...although, not right now, WAY too HOT!

Of course, it's plenty hot in DC too, but, we are doing our best to embrace and beat the heat.

Inspired by the happy family movement and various others, last week for Family Home Evening, we sat down and made our own summer bucket list.  It was fun for all of us to dream up things to do to fill our summer days and nights, and we are all looking forward to a jam-packed and fun-filled summer.  In fact, it has been so jam-packed already that the list is still just scribbled on a legal pad and not yet ready for prime time.  But, I will post it in the next couple of days just in case you want to know what we're doing in our corner of the universe to while away the hours over the next 2 months.

School ended last Friday and our summer began in earnest Monday morning.  Not surprisingly, no one except the parents felt like sleeping in, so we were up and at 'em at our regular, yet far too early hour for any day, much less a vacation day.  We didn't have much on the agenda for Monday, a serious oversight and inexcusably rookie mistake that has been remedied.  Our troops, we know, need structure, activities, schedules, commitments, tasks, chores, diversions, projects, and exercise, lots and lots of energy burning, full-throttle, exhausting exercise.  In fact, we did have a plan, but it wasn't until that evening and the anticipation failed to carry us through a very long day.

My parents came to visit last month and one of the things my Dad has long wanted to do in Washington, DC, is visit the United States Naval Observatory.  This is no small feat.  They do semi-monthly tours of the observatory, museum, and library, but you have to request a tour well in advance and there is no guarantee if you will get in.  So, I submitted our request and while we were ultimately granted admission, it was for this week and not the week my parents were in town.  But, it seemed a shame to pass up the opportunity, especially since it is nearly impossible to gain access otherwise because the USNO shares the same physical space as the Vice President's house and they don't let just anybody near that guy.  So, we went.  On a very overcast night with no visibility.

Apparently, on clear nights the resident astronomers actually demonstrate the capabilities of the massive 26 inch telescope commissioned by Abraham Lincoln and built in 1873 that calls the observatory home.  Instead, we were treated to a tour of the small, yet informative, museum, the library, which is circular and "holds one of the most complete collections of astronomical literature in the world," and, finally, the observatory itself.  The kids were pretty good and mostly patient throughout, but a visit to the USNO really is not an outing designed for little ones.  Luckily, part of the tour involved raising and lowering the floor of the observatory, much to the delight of our guys, particularly since they were able to man the controls on the way down.  We also saw our first fireflies of the season and 10 deer grazing on the grounds, two major highlights of the evening.  And, although the kids were definitely ready to leave by the end, we would recommend adding this to your "things to do in DC" lists with the caveat that you must plan well ahead and probably only as an activity suitable for ages 12 and up.

The main building which houses the museum and the library.

Claire and Daddy enjoying the tour.

The library where we also saw a collection of very old books penned by Hyginus, Galileo, Newton, and Copernicus

Isaac and the fountain in the center of the library.

The observatory from the outside.  I forgot to take any pictures inside, but, well, imagine an enormous telescope and you'll have a pretty good mental picture of what we were looking at.

We Love Washington, DC, #24

For Christmas this year Kenny's parents gave the boys the gift of tickets to several performances at a local children's theatre.  We went to our first show, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, earlier this week.  It was just under an hour long and the boys were enthralled.  This season, the theatre is doing adaptations of some of our favorite children's books so I'm sure the response for subsequent performances will be equally positive.  There are several theatres in the DC area especially for kids including a really wonderful puppet theatre, just one more great thing about living here.

No photos allowed during the show, obviously, so here they are before...

and after.

We Love Washington, DC, #23

After more than a year of Caleb asking, "When can we go in that big building," we finally made it inside the US Capitol.  We scheduled a staff tour through Senator Mike Lee's office after failing miserably with our own Congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton.  I can't figure out why Norton's office was too busy to help us with out request, considering that she is a non-voting member of the House of Representatives, has one of the smallest constituencies in the country, and she and her staff don't have to travel to go home, but we are thrilled that Senator Lee's staff were so accommodating.  Our tour was atypical is that both Kenny and I have given the same tour many times ourselves and so, more than anything, we just needed an escort into the building.  Hannah, our guide, did point out some recent additions and tried to think of things to keep the interest of our boys, but overall we sort of blitzed our way through, bookending our visit with rides on the Capitol Subway System.  And, let's be honest, those few seconds on the trains were the highlight of this adventure for Caleb and Isaac. 

Yes, it is the middle of December and we are walking around without coats.

My favorite statue - King Kamehameha I.  This statue used to be housed in Statuary Hall, but has since been relocated to the new Capitol Visitor's Center.

Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of the television and one of two statues from the state of Utah.  Several statues line the Capitol Visitor's Center which is a huge, underground building completed in 2008.  Neither Kenny nor I had been inside and it was definitely worth stopping in.

After a stop at the Crypt and the Old Supreme Court Chamber, we headed to the most impressive part of the tour, the Rotunda.  Despite being told that it would take 45 Caleb's standing one on top of the other to reach the ceiling, Caleb was unconvinced that it really was 180 feet from where we stood to the top.  He was. however, impressed by the gigantic paintings of major events in US history that ring the walls.  And, all on his own, pointed out the painting depicting the battle of Yorktown, reminding us that we had been there earlier this year.

Isaac, on the other hand, decided to take a rest from the rigors of touring and take it all in from a more relaxed vantage point.

Kenny just finished this biography of Alexander Hamilton, so he decided it made sense to pose with the statue of the man himself.

This is Ronald Reagan, in case you couldn't tell.  What is most interesting about this statue is that embedded in its base are pieces of the Berlin Wall.

The newest addition to the statues housed in the Capitol is this one of Gerald R. Ford.  I wonder which statue from Michigan was replaced by Mr. Ford's bronze tribute added, apparently, just a few months ago?

From the Rotunda, we moved onto Statuary Hall.  Once upon a time, the vast majority of all the statues in the Capitol were in Statuary Hall.  Packed in, in fact, so that it was impossible to even see many of them.  Over the years, the weight of all that marble and bronze started to take its toll and slowly they moved statues out to other parts of the building to keep the floor from collapsing.  Now there is a much more manageable number in this room that was once the House of Representatives chamber, including this one of Brigham Young.

Hanging out in the fireplace in Statuary Hall.

Our last stop before heading back to the Senate Office Buildings was the Brumidi corridors.  I have always loved this part of the building, but, sadly, these days most of it is completely inaccessible to the public.

Family group shot and proof that I was there too, 

in all my 37 weeks pregnant glory.

Riding the Capitol Subway back to the Hart building.  We had a great tour, just the right length for our little posse.  So, now we've been to that "big building" and we can cross one more thing off our not to miss in DC list.

Colored Lights

On Monday we went to the LDS Temple to see the Christmas lights.  They put up over 500,000 and it is a beautiful display.  It was a perfect evening to go with temperatures in the low 50s as compared to last year when it was barely above 20 degrees.

They also have a nativity scene with a recording in the background continuously telling the story of Jesus' birth from the New Testament.  The boys were mostly interested in "riding" the camel.

 Isaac made us promise he could ride on a real camel someday.  I have no doubt we'll be able to make good on that promise.  Though, having ridden a camel myself, I can vouch for them being not all that comfortable.

 After going inside the Visitor's Center to look around at more Christmas decorations, we decided we had seen what we came for and headed back outside to go home.  There is a nightly musical performance during the festival of lights, but we were pretty sure we couldn't talk the boys into sitting through an hour of Suzuki flutes.

 Our last stop before piling into the car was to take a picture of Isaac and his favorite tree.  There are five more pictures just like this in front of other trees.  He just couldn't decide which he liked the best.

We Love Washington, DC, #22

This weekend we took in two of Washington's annual holiday events.  First, we headed to Zoo Lights at the National Zoo, which we did last year as well, but the boys are bigger this year and, I think, had more fun.

 

 Can you see them in this picture?  Caleb is on the left and Isaac is on the right.  They are each holding a stuffed, miniature walrus that we "won" for filling out some surveys.

 Isaac was desperate to have his picture taken over and over again.  And, since he was cooperating, not his normal modus operandi, I was happy to oblige.

In between the lights we visited the small mammals, the reptile house and the great apes.  Not surprisingly, most of the animals were sleeping, but we did see a fair amount of snakes and lizards doing their nocturnal thing.

 The National Zoo is built on a hill with the main entrance at the top.  So, you walk down the whole way and then have to trudge back up to exit.  This photo was taken before Caleb realized that fact. 

Isaac again, happily posing.

Then, on Sunday afternoon, we went to DAR Constitution Hall to see/hear the US Army Band "Pershing's Own" perform their annual Holiday concert.  It was a free concert and lots of fun and something we have never done before.  The boys happily bounced and clapped along with the music before both drifted off to the lilting sounds of "O Holy Night."  We woke them when Santa Claus came, though, never want to miss an opportunity to see the big guy himself.  We didn't have great seats, but we were unwilling to arrive an hour early to compete with the busloads of retirees who attended the concert just for a better view.

Happy, though slightly sleepy, concert-goers.

On our way back to the car we passed a statue we have driven past many times.  It is of Jose de San Martin, an Argentinian general who was ultimately responsible for the liberation of Argentina, Peru, and Chile from Spain.

This is not the first time a member of our family has posed with a statue dedicated to this man.  Here I am more than 4 years ago in the Plaza San Martin in Lima, Peru.  We have now, apparently, come full circle with our visits to monuments to Jose de San Martin.

The gift of this statue was made the United States by the government of Argentina, hence the fact that San Martin's accomplishments in Chile and Peru are only mentioned as afterthoughts on the commemorative plaque. 

Feed the Birds

Just behind our house is Glover Archbold Park.  This is a narrow strip of National Park that runs right through the center of DC and provides a nice escape from the hustle and bustle of city life.  We have walked through this park on several occasions stopping to throw rocks in the stream, pick up trash left along the trail, and look for wildlife.  Usually we only see various types of birds on our rambles through the woods, but a few times we have come across deer -- always a treat for the boys.  Our latest service leaf called for making winter bird feeders for the birds that don't migrate for the winter.  So, using this very helpful and easy recipe, we bought some bird seed (well, 10 lbs. actually since we couldn't find it in a smaller quantity), chose our shapes/molds (cookie cutters) and set to work. 

The whole process took under 30 minutes and then we left our creations overnight to harden.  We think they turned out quite nicely and were very pleased with the results.  Next time, however, we will spray all the cookie cutters with cooking spray before we fill them, it makes removing the final product infinitely easier.

Our last step was to head outside and hang them for the birds to find and devour, hopefully anyway. 

 While in the forest we happened upon two enormous owls swooping in and out among the tree tops (sorry, no pictures, it was getting dark and they were pretty far above us).  I don't think the owls will appreciate our offerings, but hopefully some other birds will.   

In a few days, we'll check on the feeders and perhaps make a few more to replace them, we certainly have plenty of leftover seed since we quadrupled the recipe and still only managed to use 3 cups.  

Thankful November/ We Love Washington DC, #20

Today I am thankful for:

The National Museum of the American Indian;

 

and storytellers dressed in blue;

Chickasaw Nation dancers;

 and a red, plastic canoe.

Teepees you can stretch in;

 and building a life-size igloo.

Baskets meant for weaving;

 and a temporary tattoo.

 A buffalo hunter in bronze;

and an outing with my two.