Mark's New Chickens

Grandpa Mark has many chickens. He has given Marky two roosters. When grandpa gave him the roosters, he was more interested in showing grandpa a picture he drew. However, the first thing Mark did when he woke up the next day, was go to the back porch to the cage where the roosters were at. I told him that the he got to name them. He wanted to name one exploding head, but I told him that it had to be another name. So he came up with Fat stuffed body and Big tall man. Noah suggested to Mark that he name them Bobby and Tommy, and Mark thought that those were good names, so now we call them Tommy and Bobby. Pictures soon to come as soon as we find the cord to the camera

Smithsonian - Museum of Natural History

Sarah really enjoyed looking at the jewerly
Mark enjoyed looking at the gems, diamonds and minerals
Nathan like looking at the Dinosaurs
Katie liked flirting with a teenage girl during one of our breaks.
Katie likes pushing her stroller. Nathan was constantly staying back, and we had to keep on prodding him to come with us. On one of our proddings, Katie, ran to Nathan and pushed him to our group, all the while scolding him to stay with our group.

Smithsonian - Air and Space Museum

The first Smithsonian we went to was the Air and Space Museum. We got there by taking the subway. It was fun going on the subway. We took the Subway up the yellow line and had to switch to the blue line at L'Enfant plaza. Within two minutes of being there, we got to see a dog poop in side the station. I'm sure it will be a memorable experience for everyone. Luckily, no one stepped in it, although a few kids were close.
We got to see the wright brothers airplane. We got to see the one that flew for the first time, and we got to see the one that they flew from NY to CA. We got to see Amelia Earhart's plane. We got to see many space ships.
There was a hands-on area where the kids got to put a ball on top of a blower and have it levitate there. There were many other stations as well. All of the kids liked it, and Noah especially liked it.
We knew it was time to go when Mark said he wanted to see something else besides airplanes and spaceships.

Trip to the Jefferson Memorial

In my attempt to drive to the Lincoln Memorial, we ended up at the Jefferson Memorial. We got to climb up stairs. There were signs that told the visitors to be quiet. We had a fun time trying to keep our children quiet. Nathan really liked climbing down the big stairs in the back. The granite steps in the front are normal-sized, but the steps in the back are a little under a yard high. So did Noah and Mark. I liked the big stairs too. Jocie did not like Nathan running away after she told him to come back. The building was big and beautiful. We went around 9PM at night, and I was scared that we might get mugged, but there were many people there, and I felt fairly safe the whole time.

Trip to Mount Vernon

We decided to take a trip to Washington DC. It took 3hr and 58 min to get there, and it took a little over 5 hours to get back because 1) we left in rush hour traffic 2) I had no idea how to get into the HOV lane. The first day we stopped at Mt. Vernon. It was fun to see George Washington's house. There was a distillery (did you know that G. Washington had a strong whiskey business?) and a Gristmill that we didn't have time to visit. When we visited George Washington's Mansion house, Nathan and Katie where everywhere and I had to duck out of the tour early because both of them were bored and getting into things.
Katie's favorite part about Mt Vernon was the rocks on the ground that she got to pick up and put on the bench. Katie also chased a bee for a while.
Nathan's favorite part was that he saw a lizard in the paint cellar of one of the houses. He was disappointed when we told him not to go over the ropes to try and catch it. He also saw a spider during the film.
Sarah's favorite part about Mt Vernon was when she (and the rest of her siblings) got to go into the kids room and play with dollies and try on clothes of that era.
Mark's favorite part was getting into the mansion of George Washington and getting to go up the stairs and see George Washington's bed. But the attic was closed, so he didnt get to go into the attic.
Noah's favorite part was the large movie theater at the beginning, and getting to go into the cellar during the tour.
Jocie's favorite part was going into the museum and learning about him, which I enjoyed also. Other favorite highlight was sitting in G. Washington's orchard, listening wistfully about how he experimented with various seeds and wrote down everything that he planted, and glanced over to see water dripping down Nathan's leg and hear the pronouncement, "I peed my pants and there's poop in my diaper!" (We forgot to take off Nathan's pull up [that is usually dry each morning] from the morning and he had wet through his outfit about 1/2 way into the tour. We took off his sweat pants and his pull up and put a diaper on him. So we had an almost 4 year old in diapers with us on our trip.)
My favorite part was not pushing the stroller up a steep hill with the hot sun hitting me. My favorite part was not worrying about the kids getting lost or breaking something. I really liked the view that the back yard of the mansion had. You could see the Potomac, and there were green hills with sparse big trees. (In this part of the country, mentioning sparse trees is equal to saying many trees in Arizona.) I liked the feeling of knowing that I might be stepping where George Washington stepped. I liked seeing his tomb, and I enjoyed the air-conditioned building.
We would like to go back again sometime.
As we were driving away, we asked the kids if they enjoyed seeing where George Washington lived. Nathan piped up "He didn't live there....he was dead there."