Life Lately

The last month of school was filled with all sorts of fun activities with our three Little Crazies.

April and May were extremely wet months around here which led to too many canceled soccer games, but also held lots of fun for my muddy puddle lovers.

It took a lot for me to let them make such big messes (and clean them up afterward) but they sure had fun.

Rainy days meant lots of puzzles and inside playing too.

We have had some fun playing outside in the sunshine too.

These two had too much fun preparing for Nathan's Lego party. I don't know which one had more fun with the plans :)

Soccer fun- I think they ended up only playing like three or four games at their schedule times. Silly rain.

I love hearing these kiddos say their Bible verses every week.

Nathan's Kindergarten took a field trip to the zoo and I got to tag along. He got to ride a school bus for the first time and was pretty pumped about it. He had so much fun spending the day playing with all his favorite Kindergarten friends (and I had fun chasing them around and visiting with all their moms).

He was worn out after his big day at the zoo. I told him we could stop and get him a drink at Quick Trip before we picked up Samuel and Elisabeth, and then I looked back and saw that he was sound asleep. It was a big day for him!

He was thrilled to get birthday money/gift cards for his birthday and that he had enough money to buy the prison island Lego set he's been eyeing for months. It was $20 cheaper on Amazon than at the store, so he had to practice some delayed gratification and wait for two days to start on it, and then he finished it in a day. Ha! He wanted me to take pictures and send to his teacher so she could show his class his new Lego set.

Matt was home from work for a couple of days after we got home from vacation, so we took these Cuties to the mall and spoiled them with a carousel ride.

The surprise we brought Samuel from our trip was an inflatable dinosaur. He was thrilled. Samuel fed him hot dogs, tucked him into bed, name him Rexy and played with him non stop for a couple of days. He even told me once that when our new baby got here we'd had five kids in our family. When I corrected him and told him that we'd have four kids, he said "No, we'll have five because Rexy is in our family now too." Ha!

We were out of town for Mothers' Day and I missed my babies, but they spoiled me with sweet gifts after I got home. Matt took them to the store and let them pick out gifts for me. I love how thoughtful they were. And I got some sweet homemade things too.

Samuel and Elisabeth had Muffins with Mom just before Mothers' Day too, and Samuel's class sang the sweetest song to all the moms. Love that boy :)

I blinked and we were taking Last Day of Kindergarten pictures of my biggest boy. He had the best year. I remember all my worries and fears and tears before he started and the first couple of weeks he was in Kindergarten, and I'm just thankful for the answered prayers because he had such a great year. He loved his teacher (I did too). He's reading and writing so well, made great friends, and treasured memories. I just think he's the best kid around. And I'm thrilled to have him home with me for a couple of months.

His last day of school also brought closure to my year of having these two Tag Alongs with me. I had so much fun spending my days with these Crazies while their big brother was in school. They bonded and became the best of friends. They were the best errand buddies and always kept me laughing and tested my patience.

Samuel will be in Pre-K next year and away from me a lot more than this year and with a new baby joining us in the Fall, I grieved a little about the closure of this season of having them both home with me almost full time.

Samuel and Elisabeth also finished gymnastics at the end of May. Elisabeth kept me entertained during her brother's class every week.

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They both loved gymnastics and are excited about starting again in the Fall. They sing this song every week in their classes and I hear it A LOT at home!


And this silly boy "hurt his eye" (bumped it and didn't actually injure it at all) and needed a bandaid. He was so proud of his little eye patch and wore it all day.

There's never a dull moment around here.

Our Eleventh Anniversary

During our last lunch in Washington, Matt and I reminisced about the past year of marriage and shared our top five moments of our eleventh year of marriage. Our actual anniversary was the Saturday after we came home from our vacation, but we knew we'd have the kids with us for the day and didn't have any real plans since it was right after our trip, so we celebrated a little early.


Matt's Top Five
1. Disney World (Dinner at Crystal Palace)
2. Beach day in Navarre
3. Christmas with his side of the family
4. Washington D.C. (He wouldn't narrow down an exact moment that was his favorite)
5. Elisabeth's 2nd birthday

Angela's Top Five
1. Disney World (Our first morning at Magic Kingdom/Enchanted Tales with Belle)
2. Finding out Baby #4 is a girl
3. Washington D.C. (Walking around exploring the monuments and memorials)
4. Beach day in Navarre
5. Valentine's Day

Every year with this man by my side is a great one, and year eleven was no different!
 

Washington DC Part 3

Tuesday was our last full day in D.C. and the Capitol was our first stop. I still could never get over how neat it was to see such iconic buildings in real life.

We headed straight to the visitor's center and lined up for a tour. We didn't get to see much of the Capitol. If we go again, I'll probably request a Senate/Representative sponsored tour instead of the basic public tour. When we got denied for a White House Tour, our representative offered us a tour of the Capitol, but I was focused on the disappointment about the White House part of that email, and it was Nathan's birthday week, so I just forgot about requesting a Capitol tour. Oh well, we still had a great guide and got to see and learn a lot with fifty middle schoolers, ha!.

The artwork on the dome and in the rotunda is fascinating.

And we learned all about the state statues that are displayed throughout the Capitol.

After our tour we went back to the Visitor's Center and looked through some of the exhibits and learned more about the history of the Capitol and the Senate and House of Representatives.

Then we walked across to the Library of Congress to look around for a bit.

At this point, I was sort of done looking at old buildings, so I didn't want to stay too long. We just stayed 15 minutes or so before we had seen enough.

We went to a fun little diner for lunch that had great food and awesome milkshakes. Matt said it was his second favorite meal of the trip.

After lunch we went to the National Archives to see the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. That was cool to see. I was impressed by the neatness of the handwriting. It was fun and awe inspiring to see so much history in those documents (and the security to protect them, ha!). I made Matt watch National Treasure again with me after we got back home :).

Afterward we headed back to the National History Museum. We had a couple of exhibits we hadn't been able to finish, so we walked through those and we hoped to find something for the kids at the gift shop, but we came up empty. We had a few hours left in the afternoon, so we decided to walk around Georgetown to do some shopping and hopefully find some souvenirs for the kids. That ended up being a bust. It was hot and we were tired and not finding many stores that were worth looking in. We just ended up walking around for a long time and then gave up and headed back for dinner and an early night. And we  ordered the kids souvenirs on Amazon from our hotel room. Ha!

Our flight home wasn't until Wednesday evening so we still had another morning to spend in Washington. By this point though we had actually seen everything we wanted to see which felt really nice. I hate it at the end of vacations, when I think "I wish we could stay another day" or "We didn't get time to do that." It felt like a productive vacation, ha! I guess the only place I slightly regretted not going was Mt. Vernon, but it just wasn't convenient to get to, and we didn't know if it would have been worth the time and money to go. Anyway, we still had a free morning, so we decided to visit the American Indian Museum. We thought maybe we'd learn something about Oklahoma.

It was much smaller than the other museums. About half of it was all about the culture and history of ALL the different American Indian tribes- I never realized there were so many. I was a little bored by all of that part. The other main exhibit was a history of the American Indian's role in our history- all the treaties and such that impacted the U.S. expansion, etc. I found that part more interesting (and complicated and sad and all of that). I learned a lot from that exhibit. We finished the museum in a little over an hour. There were a couple of other little things we looked at, but it felt like they were just trying to fill the space with little exhibits.

After we finished at the museum we walked over the the Botanical Gardens for a minute to look around and figure out our plans for the rest of the day.

We decided on a lunch place that was a pretty decent walk, but we had time to kill and the weather was nice (but hot), so we decided to try it. We did get to walk through a different part of town. We ate lunch and reminisced on our vacation and our eleventh year of marriage, then hopped on the Metro after one last stop for ice cream at the fun place we found earlier in the week and started our journey home. To get home we traveled by taxi, train, bus, plane, and car and everything went so smoothly. It took a long time (about eleven hours total), but we had zero issues with any of our travel. We even caught the bus shuttle (that runs every 40 minutes) from the train station to the airport without having to wait at all. I finished a book on the travel home and it ended up being an easy evening where we were both savoring our last few kid free hours.

We had such a great visit to Washington D.C. I'll admit it wasn't my favorite vacation- It's hard to top Disney World or our cruises which are always amazing. This was a different kind of vacation, but still so fun and so enjoyable to spend almost a full week of uninterrupted time together as a couple exploring a new place. We could go anywhere, and it would still be awesome. When we got married Matt and I talked about how our dream was to take two vacations every year (one with our future kids and one just the two of us). Honestly, it felt like a dream at the time- one that I didn't expect to really happen, but for the most part we've worked hard to make it happen (and are grateful for willing grandparents to watch our kids for a week). Except for the years we've had tiny babies, we've been able to get away for a few days around our anniversary, and it's just so, so good for our marriage and so, so fun!! And now that our kids are old enough to understand and look forward to vacations, we're making them a priority for them too. It's a sacrifice to our budget and our calendars but it will always be worth it to us. Our favorite memories from the year always include experiences from our vacations and I always remind myself of that when we think about the cost or the things we miss by being away- it's totally worth it! We're already planning next year's trip :).

Washington DC Part 2

Our main destination on Sunday was the American History Museum. This was the museum I was most looking forward to seeing, and it ended up being great!

We were missing our Nathan when we walked in and saw this. I think they are opening a whole Lego exhibit next month.

I felt like this museum did a really good job of encompassing so much of U.S. history in one building. There were cultural exhibits, war exhibits, transportation exhibits, technology exhibits, famous American exhibits and exhibits about Presidents- there was so much to see. I'm usually not much of a museum person, but there was very little in this museum that we didn't see.

Matt mentioned this was his favorite museum too because of the nostalgia. We saw so many things that reminded us of our childhoods.

I really liked how each of the exhibits sort of took you from past to future. One of my favorites was all about American cooking and how grocery stores and farming and modern conveniences have transformed the American dinner table.

We were only about halfway finished with the museum when we needed to grab lunch and head the the Ford's Theater for our scheduled tour time. I thought one morning would be long enough to see the museum, but it wasn't, so we left with plans to come head back later that afternoon.

Ford's Theater (where Lincoln was assassinated) was another highlight of the trip for me. We walked through a museum that walked us through a timeline of Lincoln's political career, his time as President and gave a lot of Civil War history too. We also learned a lot about John Wilkes Booth and the plans of him and his accomplices' plans. I found it all really interesting. I didn't have the best history teachers in school, so I never felt like I learned much about American history. Maybe that's why I enjoyed our trip so much.

 We got to see the gun that killed Lincoln

After we walked through the museum, we walked into the theater.

Then we headed across the street to the house where he died and another little museum about his legacy.

After we finished up at the Ford's theater, we walked over to the White House Visitor Center. We had really hoped to get to tour the White House, but we found out a couple of weeks before our trip, that our request had been denied. I was pretty bummed about it, but I still wanted to see what I could of the White House even if we couldn't tour inside the House.

I enjoyed the visitor center more than Matt. I'm always drawn to homes and family life themed things, so the White House has always held some intrigue for me.

Afterward we walked as close as we could to the White House to get some pictures.

Then we headed back to the American History Museum and stayed until they closed it down for the day. We spent most of our time at the war exhibit which was huge and showcased all the wars we've fought as a nation. Again, I enjoyed how we sort of traveled through time and saw how the way we fought wars has changed and evolved from past to present. After the museum closed we ate dinner and then headed back to our hotel for the evening.

On Monday we decided to spend the day in Alexandria, VA. We had a great day exploring the city that so many were quick to inform us was fifty years older than Washington DC.

We arrived early before the visitor center was open or any of the tours had started, so we walked down the main street in the town toward the river. It was a pretty town to walk through filled with neat shops and restaurants. We made mental notes as we walked of what we wanted to check out again on our way back.

We signed up for a guided tour of the town and ended up with a private tour all to ourselves with a sweet old lady who ended up just driving us around in her car telling us all about the history of the town. We got to see so much of the town and the famous buildings.

Town Hall of Alexandria

George Washington's Town House

Christ Church where George Washington and Robert E Lee both attended- not at the same time, ha!

Our tour guide works at the church so we got to tour inside too which was cool- one of the best parts of the day.

These plaques are original and more than 200 years old.

This is the pew that was owned by George Washington (apparently people bought their pews back then). It felt a little surreal to sit in the same seat that George Washington did so many years ago.

After our tour of the city, we headed to the Apothecary which is a famous historical building. We learned that Martha Washington's slave came to order medicine for her from this apothecary.

We got another little private tour of the building which was used as an apothecary up until the Great Depression when it closed and was restored as a museum.

I had found out about some yummy cupcake shops in Alexandria, so of course we had to stop, and I'm glad we did because their cupcakes were super delicious. It was the perfect dessert after a great seafood lunch in the Old Town.

After our treat, we walked to Gadsby's Tavern and took another tour of the tavern. George Washington never stayed at the Tavern because he owned a townhouse in Alexandria but he did eat there. I really just enjoyed learning about life back in the last 1700's- the foods they ate, how they traveled, what they did for entertainment and their awful sleeping arrangements. Ha! Women rarely traveled with the men because of the danger and the expense, and it's probably a good thing because their sleeping quarters were pretty terrible.

This is a picture of the ball room inside the tavern. They had some really weird interpretative art exhibit set up with chairs and random things. Matt and I just don't appreciate interpretative art and we thought it was just weird.

So the place we both might have been most excited about in Alexandria was an ice cream parlor that makes fresh ice cream to order with liquid nitrogen. And it was awesome! Best dessert ever. I convinced Matt to get the sampler which was six different scoops, and their flavors were unique and traditional and so yummy!! It exceeded our expectations and was such a fun vacation memory.

We walked through a few shops and headed back to the Metro. We were pretty close to Arlington cemetery, so we stopped there on our way back to our hotel. My feet were pretty tired by that point, so we walked around briefly and headed to the tomb of the unknown soldier to watch the Changing of the Guard.

I think Matt thought it was cooler than I did. It was neat to see though. It was one of the those things that was good to see once, but I don't really need to see it again.

We left Arlington that evening and we were pretty wiped and stuffed from all the yummy food we ate in Alexandria. We stopped for a light dinner on the way back to our hotel and headed back to our room to relax and rest our feet.