Monticello

Last Saturday we took at day trip down to Charlottesville, Virginia to visit Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive down there through the beautiful Virginia countryside. We had a big rainstorm on the way, but the weather cleared up beautifully by the time we got there.




David and I had been a long time ago when Sarah was a baby, but it was fun to go back and take the kids and Grandma and Grandpa.


The house was beautiful and full of Jefferson's interesting collections and inventions. Like Washington's Mt. Vernon, Jefferson's home also had beautiful gardens.



The kids had fun playing at the hands-on discovery center.







I loved the view of the Blue Ridge Parkway and beautiful Virginia countryside. Monticello is a lovely place. I can see why Jefferson never wanted to leave.

Graduation

After five years of undergraduate, four years of medical school, three years of residency, (one year of general pediatrics and one deployment to Afghanistan in the middle) and three years of fellowship, David has finally finished his medical training. On Friday, June 19, he officially graduated from his fellowship in pediatric oncology/hematology.

The graduates, including interns, residents and fellows from all branches of the military, all marching in. David is the third one in from the left.

The ceremony, held on the lawn in front of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, was nicely done. I like the formality of the military on occasions like this.We were lucky enough to have David's parents from Idaho join us for the graduation. Congratulations David! Now on to the next adventure!

Playing at the Creek...one last time

A few days before school got out we went to play at our favorite creek one last time.

It was a hot, hot day. But down by the creek, it is always cool and comfortable. The kids had such fun playing and we are sad to leave it behind. I would feel worse about leaving it, except Washington has many such places. Hopefully we can find a creek near our new house that we can frequent.

Kids can be in a room full of toys and be bored, but bring them to a place with water and rocks and sticks, and they'll be happy for hours.

The water wasn't really that deep, but they had fun swimming across--even though they could touch--and helping Kate cross the deeper parts.

Good-bye creek. We will miss you.

End-of-the-Year Excitement

School finally ended for the summer on Tuesday. With the end of school comes all the excitement of concerts, plays and performances. Here are a few pictures of the kids from some of these recent events.

This is Sarah playing the flute at her band concert. I didn't have too high of expectations from a middle school band, but I must say that I was extremely surprised at the quality of all the performing groups. It was exceptional! Better than most high school groups I have heard. Lots of these kids have taken private lessons for years, so it was wonderful to hear them perform.

Rachel and Sarah both played in a spring piano recital. They worked hard and performed well. They were sad to say goodbye to their teacher for the past two years. Despite a somewhat rocky relationship with her, they have learned so much and improved dramatically over these past couple years.

Here is Ben performing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during his 1st grade celebration. All the first graders sang some songs together and then each class did a song and poem relating to a season. Ben's class had summer. They recited a poem in unison and then sang their song, complete with choreography. It was too cute. The other classes performed Frosty the Snowman, Singing in the Rain and a Halloween song.

On the second to the last day of school, Rachel's class performed their third play of the year, "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It was a shortened version, but they still used the real Shakespeare lines. Rachel played Cobweb, one of the fairies, and did an outstanding job, speaking her lines loudly so everyone could hear (this is a big accomplishment for Rachel as she is often softspoken). I've been so impressed with her teacher this year and the great job she did at exposing them to Shakespeare at such a young age (they performed an abbreviated version of Romeo and Julie earlier in the year).

Sarah was absolutely thrilled to receive a trophy at the end-of-the-year awards assembly. She got the trophy for getting second place in the science fair expo held earlier in the year. As you may recall, Sarah has long been jealous of the number of trophies Rachel has received from various activities, and has been trying to figure out how to snag some of her own. She had already been awarded a big ribbon for her project, so she didn't know she would get this trophy as well and was about busting her buttons when she got home. Sarah was also awarded a positive attitude award voted on by her teachers.

Welcome summer vacation! It is finally here!

Climbing the tree

When we moved to DC, Ben's main criteria for a house was a climbing tree. He was 4 years old and very into climbing trees.

I must admit it wasn't one of my main criteria, but we were glad when the house we decided upon had a decent tree for climbing in the front yard. It has grown a lot in the last three years, and now it is a pretty great tree for climbing. The kids, especially Ben, have had a wonderful time climbing and playing in the tree over the last few years. I went out the other day and snapped some pictures of Ben and Kate in the tree.

We'll miss our climbing tree.

Now, Ben's main criteria for our next house is a basketball hoop. We'll see what we can do buddy.

About Ben

Ben has been cracking me up lately. He's been doing and saying so many funny things. He's recently started building houses out of cards. He's pretty good at it, and he definitely thinks so.

He asked me the other day if we would buy a copy of the Guinness Book of World Records if one of his card houses set the world record. I assured him that yes, we would definitely buy him a copy if he made it in. I can't decide if I should search for some impressive card houses on the Internet to show him how big one would have to be to make it in the Guiness Book of World Records, or if that would just discourage him. It is fun to see him so excited about something.

Ben has also become a great speller. He aces all his spelling tests and now has started spelling words in daily conversation. The other day at dinner he said, "Will you P-A-S-S the M-A-S-H-E-D P-O-T-A-T-O-E-S? Sometimes he doesn't quite get the spelling right, but he's pretty close and it has been pretty funny to listen to him talk.

Thanks for making us laugh Benjamin!

Memorial Day Weekend

We were lucky enough to have my sister Julie and her two girls, Kylie and Dani come visit us over Memorial Day weekend. We had such a great time with them and were so glad to spend time with them before our move across the country. Thanks Julie for making the long drive to come see us!

Friday night we all went to see the new Night at the Museum movie--Battle at the Smithsonian. It was fun to see all the museums and monuments that we love in the movie. Then on Saturday we headed downtown to see them in person.

We first went to the American History Museum. We saw some of our favorites in the Entertainment section--the Ruby Slippers, Oscar the Grouch, Seinfeld's Puffy Shirt, and Kermit the Frog. We also waited in line to see the Star Spangled Banner.

Outside the museum there was a pool set up with little boats to float. The kids had to stop and try this out for a bit.

Next we walked to Union Station for lunch. It was kind of a long walk, on a rather hot day, but we finally made it!

My sister Julie and I in front of Union Station.

I love Union Station. I think these archways are amazing! It is beautiful inside too and I've always wanted to spend time wandering through all the fun shops, but the kids never seem to want to do that.


Next we went to the Capitol Building. We had fun taking pictures on the steps before checking out the new underground Visitor's Center.

We were so sad for the weekend to end. We have loved living on the East Coast with them for the last five years and will miss them terribly when we move.