Monday, November 15, 2010
Holy Blog-backlog Batman!!!
If you think that everything is going so well - that we're having soooo much fun that I can't even take the time to write - you'd be wrong. These last few weeks have been extremely difficult. In fact Sean (suprise, suprise) summed our recent experience up best when he reported:
"Mom, my brain is full of dinosaur stuff. I'm a dinosaur expert. The things you tell me can't fit in my brain. They won't go between the dinosaur stuff."
Excellent. Glad I am working so hard.
It may not have been such a hot idea to take 3 weeks off in the middle of the semester to travel. Don't get me wrong, (most) the boys had a great time. Gavin was stuck in the stroller or his harness (read: leash) quite a bit but that's his own fault. He likes to run, he's sneaky and he's getting pretty fast. He's also really hard to find in a crowd. Anyway, Aiden and Sean had a good time. Their favorite part: all the police and security guys with big guns. Their second favorite part: the beach. Their third favorite part: the fact that the rental car got towed while we were at the top of the Washington Monument. No, we didn't see them towing the car. The rest of the Washington DC sightseeing stops were a further down the list but they remember. They do. You just have to ask VERY specific questions to get to that information. Any general questions will ellicit the above stories told in great detail with lots of hand gestures and sound effects.
So what did we do?
We spent a week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa) where we:
visited Kittyhawk,
saw at least three lighthouses,
rode a ferry (in our car!) twice,
caught frogs,
played on the beach,
caught fish and sand crabs,
took nature walks,
went shopping (that was me),
met our new best friend Cousin Matt,
and tried to see Roanoke. (The park was closed and the visitor center was in a trailer -a tad dissappointing.)
On our way home we stopped at both the original Jamestown and Williamsburg. Aiden had so much fun in Williamsburg. He was very upset to learn that we would not be coming back the following day.
In Washington DC we...
walked along the Potomac,
saw friends and family who were kind enough to meet us in various places around the city,
utilized all sorts of alternative transportion, (It was more difficult than I had imagined. Fortunately there were many random but kind people who offered to help.)
viewed the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights,
and went to the:
National Natural History Museum,
National Museum of American History,
National Aerospace Museum (both sites),
National Sculpture garden,
National Zoo,
Bureau of Printing and Engraving,
very teeny, tiny but very informational and friendly National Forest Service Museum, (Did you know that the Forest Service is a branch of the USDA? I didn't.)
National Aquarium, (This is a skipper - the good one is in Baltimore. We didn't heed the warning.)
Lincoln Memorial,
Washington Monument,
World War Two Memorial,
White House Tour, (Where we shook hands with Obama - just kidding! But I think we did see his car leave the compound.)
Capitol and took the tour,
and saw the building for the Supreme Court. (I can only do so much :) )
We also visited all the gift stores these places offered. My boys love their gift stores.
I feel like I'm forgetting something but I can't remember what. Go figure. It was a VERY busy three weeks so I am not too surprised it's taking us a while to get back into our routine. We'll probably hit our stride by the end of next week - just in time for Thanksgiving.
"Mom, my brain is full of dinosaur stuff. I'm a dinosaur expert. The things you tell me can't fit in my brain. They won't go between the dinosaur stuff."
Excellent. Glad I am working so hard.
It may not have been such a hot idea to take 3 weeks off in the middle of the semester to travel. Don't get me wrong, (most) the boys had a great time. Gavin was stuck in the stroller or his harness (read: leash) quite a bit but that's his own fault. He likes to run, he's sneaky and he's getting pretty fast. He's also really hard to find in a crowd. Anyway, Aiden and Sean had a good time. Their favorite part: all the police and security guys with big guns. Their second favorite part: the beach. Their third favorite part: the fact that the rental car got towed while we were at the top of the Washington Monument. No, we didn't see them towing the car. The rest of the Washington DC sightseeing stops were a further down the list but they remember. They do. You just have to ask VERY specific questions to get to that information. Any general questions will ellicit the above stories told in great detail with lots of hand gestures and sound effects.
So what did we do?
We spent a week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa) where we:
visited Kittyhawk,
saw at least three lighthouses,
rode a ferry (in our car!) twice,
caught frogs,
played on the beach,
caught fish and sand crabs,
took nature walks,
went shopping (that was me),
met our new best friend Cousin Matt,
and tried to see Roanoke. (The park was closed and the visitor center was in a trailer -a tad dissappointing.)
On our way home we stopped at both the original Jamestown and Williamsburg. Aiden had so much fun in Williamsburg. He was very upset to learn that we would not be coming back the following day.
In Washington DC we...
walked along the Potomac,
saw friends and family who were kind enough to meet us in various places around the city,
utilized all sorts of alternative transportion, (It was more difficult than I had imagined. Fortunately there were many random but kind people who offered to help.)
viewed the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights,
and went to the:
National Natural History Museum,
National Museum of American History,
National Aerospace Museum (both sites),
National Sculpture garden,
National Zoo,
Bureau of Printing and Engraving,
very teeny, tiny but very informational and friendly National Forest Service Museum, (Did you know that the Forest Service is a branch of the USDA? I didn't.)
National Aquarium, (This is a skipper - the good one is in Baltimore. We didn't heed the warning.)
Lincoln Memorial,
Washington Monument,
World War Two Memorial,
White House Tour, (Where we shook hands with Obama - just kidding! But I think we did see his car leave the compound.)
Capitol and took the tour,
and saw the building for the Supreme Court. (I can only do so much :) )
We also visited all the gift stores these places offered. My boys love their gift stores.
I feel like I'm forgetting something but I can't remember what. Go figure. It was a VERY busy three weeks so I am not too surprised it's taking us a while to get back into our routine. We'll probably hit our stride by the end of next week - just in time for Thanksgiving.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Conversations with Sean
I have called Sean a Chatty Patty for a long time now, in fact, sometimes his chatter alone is enough to exhaust me. I thought that Chatty Patty was what very talkative people were called - it rhymes, it's a descriptive name, it's cute, ect... Right? No. The phrase is really Chatty Kathy - named after a doll in the 50's or something. What kind of marketing is that??? Well, we're sticking with Patty because it's better. So there.
"No, why?"
"Because I want to get all my words out before I die. When I am dead I won't have anything to say. That's why I talk right when I wake up in the morning. You can't say anything when you are dead. You know, like some people can't walk. Or how some people don't have legs or arms or fingers."
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