DC in a Nutshell

 
We were there for three weeks. We did a LOT. The boys had a blast.

 
My nephews are huge.

 
This water park? Was the bomb!

 
The water park was the ultimate place for Dean.  He could climb things AND get sprayed by hoses. SCORE.

 
Dean, Adam, Uncle Mike, Marcus and I went to the movies twice, on rainy days. We saw RIO and Kung Fu Panda 2 (again). It was great, great fun.

 
This little cutie pie is Lukas. Here, he seems to be doing his best Elvis impersonation.  It took him a bit to warm up, but by the end of our trip, he loved his Aunt Jen, especially when we'd sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" together.  Dean and I babysat him one morning and Dean kept asking, "Baby Lukey, you okaaaaaaaay?  Are you okaaaaaaaay?  He's okay, Mama."

 
Marcus turned 41 while we were there. We celebrated with ice cream cake, complete with blue icing.  He and I also went on a real! live! date! to see INXS.  Marcus was very bent out of shape because Berlin was opening for them.  I was actually excited because my inner-seventh-grader wanted to geek out when they sang "Take My Breath Away."  Marcus actually enjoyed them a lot in spite of himself.  He walked all the way over to the aisle when Terri Nunn walked through the audience so he could hi-5 her and get some phone pics.  INXS was great.  We are not huge fans of the new lead singer, but I mean, no one is going to replace Michael Hutchence, you know?  The highlight of the evening for me was watching the Farris brothers sing a beautiful accoustic version of "Don't Change." It was a blast to be out with my husband listening to some great music.

 
Pop Pop made bamboo cane poles for the boys. Neither was very good at fishing, but I think they appreciated the sentiment. They also had a really good time playing in all the mud on the bank.

 
My favorite thing we did was the Potomac Pirate Adventure. They load you up on a boat and sail you around the Potomac for 40 minutes while a mildly scary man teaches you to be a pirate. Dean The Dangerous was REALLY into it. We all had a blast being pirates and seeing the sites from the River.

 
The photo above was taken on what definitely qualifies as one of the top five hottest days of my life. So what did we do? Took the little fair-skinned children to the park!  They were pretty much done within an hour of our arrival. We did get them to hold out long enough to ride the carousel, which Lukas HATED because he had to ride with me instead of his daddy. But the park was pretty awesome, complete with tons of bridges, things to climb on and a really nice maze.

 
When it was time to come back home, Dean was a great travel buddy, doing a little light reading at the airport and taking a good nap on the plane.  We just barely made our connection in ATL and had our plane not landed at the next gate over from where we needed to catch our connection, we would have been stuck in ATL for SIX HOURS. Thank God for small favors.

When we got home, this had happened:

 
The good news is that it didn't fall on the house.  Dean is very concerned and keeps suggesting we attach the tree to Marcus's truck and pull.  Marcus cut a lot of the small branches off with his chainsaw today, but said he needs a bigger chainsaw to get the larger ones. He is seriously contemplating renting a chainsaw from Home Depot. (Raise your hand if you think THAT is a bad idea!) But we'll get it handled.  More than anything right now, we're happy to be home in our own beds with our own toys.  Chainsaws and all.

Comments

[rkmama]

Looks like you guys kept busy and had a good time...Pirate Dean looks pretty awesome.

[yahoo]

Histtory with this film revolves around a clownfish, Marlin looking for his daughter Nemo. It is of a hihh school girtl called Pauline, who is delusional and unattractive. It's easy and gets easier using the passage of time.

[salt lake city mold inspection]

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