trip downtown

So, we had tickets to see “Hello, Dolly!” today–turned out to be quite an outing. The kids got dressed up for the occasion:

After the show, we went out to dinner.

The kids drew while we waited for our dinner to arrive:

Mary loved the soup.

 

We walked around town a bit:

Wesley took this picture of Mary:

We wound up the evening with another walk around town and popsicles. The kids said that their favorite part was the ice cream cart and some ducks we saw while wandering. Just in case you wondered whether the afternoon of culture excited them.

baseball outing

The local paper had a special promotion–spend a certain amount at certain retailers for back-to-school stuff and get 4 free tickets to a baseball game. We’d been talking about taking the kids to see the Nationals this summer and just hadn’t gotten around to it, so we sent in our entry and got free tickets! (As long as you disregard the price of the $16 hot dogs and whatnot.) A bunch of other family people got tickets for the same day, so we had a crowd of relatives to go with, too.

Anyway, this was, I think, my second baseball game. I have a vague recollection of freezing to death during a game at Wrigley Field as an undergrad. But it was the kids’ first game. On the way there, on Metro, I tried to explain to them that you should cheer when your team does something good.

Me: So then you clap! And you can yell things like “Good job!”

Wesley: I’m gonna yell “Thanks for doing the right thing!”

Anyway, we went to the ballpark and watched our team lose (they’ve been winning all season, but not this time!).

Mary took a few pictures.

She’s currently obsessed with the fisheye lens function on her camera:

This was her view of the game (from behind Claire):

Here are Wesley and John cheering:

 

The kids pestered everyone by climbing up and down the two rows we were using (well, asking other people to lift them up and down). They ate hot dogs and ice cream and peanuts. It was all good fun for the first three hours or so. The game went on for FOUR hours, which is a bit much baseball if you ask me, but they held up pretty well and were still in good spirits afterward, which is more than could be said for many of the people around us who got cranky when the other team started beating us.

I got this pic of Mary, who was simultaneously delighted and scandalized by her cousins’ antics:

I think it was a success, for the most part.

visit from Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Mike!

We had a lovely visit from Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Mike. They headed home on Wednesday, and I think the kids are recovering right about now. We ate well, had lots of conversation (shocking!), and drank some very good wine.
We went downtown to check out some memorials. Wesley and Grandma Sandy shared a little hug.

Grandpa showed Mary the Braille underneath the letters on the quote and she went hunting for every A.

Kids had a snuggle–I think this was solidarity over the fact that they were both hungry.

A little rest time:

On a different day, we visited a local historic mansion with a cool garden.

 

There was a cool playground for the kids (all three of them):

 

 

 

 

At a local aviation museum, Mike explained the rotary engine.

…and used the flight simulator.

 

We had a great time–especially the kids, who were a whirlwind of activity interspersed with complete collapse.

Congratulations, Dr. Maggie!

Maggie and Jim came to visit for Maggie’s graduation–she’s Dr. Maggie!

 

 

 

 

Wesley declined to be photographed, but Mary was all for it.

 

strawberry picking!

We went strawberry picking on Saturday–Mary took some pictures.

Getting started:

 

 

Wesley:

 

 

Looking for a good spot to pick:

 

 

Mama picking berries:

 

 

Conor took this one:

 

 

the rest of the family:

 

 

Finally–last but not least–the chickens.

strawberry picking!

On Saturday, we took the kids to a local farm to pick strawberries.

Conor showed Mary how to find ones that were red all the way to the end.

She was delighted to find them.

I think Wesley was irritated when I asked him to stop and let me take a photo.

…because then he wandered off.

She found one!

berries!

Taking a rest after we finished up:

Showing off their beautiful berries:

The farm also had a sand pile with lots of toys!

When we got home, I made a rhubarb-strawberry custard pie–the kids approved.

And then a batch of jam–six half-pints plus a bit left over is just about enough to get us through the winter (or perhaps I should say, to get Mary through occasional PB&J phases for her school lunches):

outings

So, we’ve had a couple of outings in the last week–last Friday, I took Mary to school with me. She loves coming to school, and now that she’s old enough to sit quietly during my classes, I figure it’s good and educational for her!

She also liked my office:

She walked a long, long way (all the way from the parking lot to my classroom and back to my office). She looked very grown-up with her backpack and her jeans.

Then, on Tuesday, I took the kids downtown to the Natural History museum.

Mary AGAIN looked very grown-up, taking pictures:

We saw dinosaur bones.

Wesley identified this–when I said, “What kind of dinosaur do you think this is?”–as “A BIG SCARY dinosaur that wants to eat me!”

We paused for refreshment.

We checked out the nature photography…and Mary was menaced by a crab. (Wesley is shouting, “There’s a crab on you, Mary! A crab gonna get you!”)

Kids in the termite hill!

Mary took this pic of Wesley and me. He was a very big boy and walked almost the whole way (which is  a LOT for someone his size!).

Afterward, we met up for lunch with Daddy–he picked us up at the train. Wesley loved his lunch:

Successful trips, both–now that the dissertation is out to the committee I have a little more time, so we’re making up for a semester of benign neglect!

kids’ pics: trip to DC

We went downtown to the Air and Space Museum and the Botanical Gardens on MLK Day, since Conor and Mary both had the day off. Mary took a few pictures. I think she’s a budding photographer!

Wesley wasn’t really cooperating for this one:

Tip of a rocket!

Space thing–I’m not sure exactly what this is.

…and one of Mama and Daddy. I asked her to take one for me since usually I can’t get pics of Conor and me together. She did a great job.

pumpkin patch!

Yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch. They have a hayride, a petting zoo, a straw maze, and lots and lots of pumpkins.

Wesley, enjoying the hayride:

Mary, jockeying for position in the pumpkin field (you might think that, in acres and acres of pumpkins, she wouldn’t need to shove Wesley out of the way–but you would be wrong):

Mary selected a pumpkin too big for her to carry.

mmm…slushie.

Mary communing with chickens:

Mary patting the bunny:

Mrs. Schagel (of Schlagel Farms) showing the kids the bunny

Mary took the straw maze at top speed.

Wesley went a little more slowly–just barely on the “fun” side of “fun or scary?”

Wesley made a friend.

literary events

We’ve gone to a couple of readings in the last month or so: Colson Whitehead and Eduardo Galeano. We really, really wanted to go to the Galeano one, so we decided to go to the Whitehead one as a dry run to see how the kids would do. Turned out that they did okay–not perfect, but workable for a reading in a store where we could take them off to a corner and still hear.

Colson Whitehead is one of those curiosities, for me, whose public speaking I like, but whose books are sort of….blah. [I should say here that I have only read one, Apex Hides the Hurt, and maybe I would have liked that better if I hadn't heard him read from it on NPR first. The reading was so good that I expected to LOVE the book, but instead it was just okay.]

Conor feels this way about Douglas Coupland, incidentally.

Anyway, we went to hear Whitehead, who was on tour shilling his new novel, Sag Harbor.

Wesley wanted some water.

From June photos

Mary hung out on the library stool.

From June photos

I like the way she’s holding her own leash.

From June photos

Galeano was promoting his new book, Mirrors: Stories of Everyone. His reading was great, at least the parts we could understand. It was partly in English and partly in Spanish, but since we were chasing kids there were English parts we couldn’t understand either. However, he signed our copy of the book, and he was extremely nice–very warm and personable, and nice to the kids.

Wesley wanted to read The Paris Review.

From June photos

From June photos

He was smiley.

From June photos