hot & historic

DC Field Trip

 Today, the hottest day on record, we decided to go to DC and see the monuments and the Smithsonian. 

We rode the metro, which is always part of the fun :)

 Then went to the Smithsonian Castle and the Natural History Museum. We didn't get to see it all, of course, but saw a few wings before heading out to the monuments.

 We lost a few of our party at the WW II memorial, they found a shady tree and decided to wait.  Lu, E, M and I forged ahead to the Lincoln memorial, which is my favorite and a must see.

We took some pictures, sweated a lot and then headed home.  On the way home we stopped for frozen yogurt. 

It was fun, in a historic and hot kind of way.

then and now

same bone, same little girl, same bad photographer.  She's getting so big!!

post vacation

so, we arrived home on Saturday night, hauled our suitcases inside and that was about it.  I did go to the grocery store, R mowed the lawn and pulled some weeds and Dani unloaded all the kitchen stuff  we had but the suitcases and dirty clothes just waited for us.
They waited all day on Sunday (love that day of rest!) and then this morning we had a massive cleaning party.  Not everyone was excited about it, however in two hours we got it all done.  Dani did lots of work, Mackenzie also did, she's a great little helper.  The others took more persuading, but they did help.
After we went to the pool and swam, which was great and everyone enjoyed.

R got in a crash today.  He was leaving the base and there was an accident closing off one of the gates.  He got stuck in the traffic and he, along with many others were doing u-turns (over a broken line) to turn around.  Unfortunately he turned and didn't see the guy who also  turned and was then heading back.  That guys also didn't see R and t-boned into him :(  This is very sad.  We are glad and grateful that R is okay, so was the other guy..the car was towed though and we will know more tomorrow.   It is almost paid off and now we will have to fix it, and our insurance is going to go up.

When we were cleaning E and I were in the basement and I found a getting ready for 4th grade summer work book that H never did.  I gave it to him and asked him to do a couple of pages.  It was then that we discovered he didn't know how to divide.  I was surprised.  He said they never covered it in school, but I think he should have so I went over it a little, and he understood right away.  Tonight I told R about it and he worked with him on even more complex problems, E thinks it's great fun and asked for more and more.  Problem solved, he's now ready for 4th grade. 

We are really enjoying having Tate visit.  She is so funny.  She calls Sierra see-we-ah.  So cute.  She calls Millie "popcorn", and is very insistant on it.  "Come here popcorn" she calls.  Today we looked at a Clifford book with little windows to open for a long time.  She liked it.  She bit both Hannah and Dani today, she's part shark.  Everyone adores her.  I love watching how sweet E and Lu and H are with her.  They all play with her and watch out for her.  Very nice.

J is doing great at school.  She got an A on her first paper and 100%s on all her quizzes and tests so far.  She is changing her major to undecided and is going to a ball this weekend.  BYU is all I dreamed of ( :) )

We watched Knight and Day yesterday afternoon, it was cute.  We made fried green tomatoes for dinner (along with other things ) and they were tasty.

More on the battleship

That tiny red speck in the top picture is E.  The bottom picture is me and my honey and if you look closely you can see Lu's feet peeking out behind my skirt :)

Nauticus

 Greg's flight was leaving from Norfolk and we had a lot of time between when we needed to be out of the house and when he was leaving so we decided to go to Nauticus.  It was a lot of fun.  The Battleship Wisconsin is there and we got to go on it and walk around. 

They also have a maritime museum and a naval museum that we got to go to.  It was very interesting to see what life would have been like on a destroyer. 

 They had a nice section on NOAA and the tools they use and they also had a few animal tanks.  We got to touch a shark, which was super cool.  It had rough skin.

 We also went to a labyrinth called Atlantis, it was for kids but it was pretty fun to run through and see all the things they had set up and even the big kids enjoyed playing on the interactive exhibits.

Norfolk was a lovely city and I am really glad we got a chance to see a little of it on our way home.

Birthday Girl

 We had the opportunity to celebrate Mackenzie's birthday with her this year! It's only the 2nd time in her 12 years that we have been together.  I remember when she was born.  I was expecting Hannah and Val and I were so excited that we would have baby girls together.  We were at Destin vacationing and got a call in the middle of the night, on our land line because that was all we had then (weird huh?) It was so exciting!!!Mackenzie was born!

 A year later when Hannah and Mackenzie were turning 1 we were in CA visiting Grandma and Papa and we had a birthday party for them.

Now 11 years later we are celebrating her 12th.  We made a cake, sang to her (a couple of times), went shopping, opened gifts, and went to play putt putt.  It was a lot of fun!

Happy Birthday M!  We love you.