Normal Life?

May 31: First semi-normal feeling day since coming back from our trip, except for Ellie packing her bags for Hogwarts.   Did lots and lots of laundry.

June 1: Spencer was having some neuropsych testing done, so we spent ALL day at Children's Hospital in DC.

June 2:  Had to drive Spence both ways to work, took a hike with the Spigarelli's and stake YW leaders, Ellie missed activity days because I am inept, and we went to a concert at JMHS for mutual tonight.

June 3: Another almost normal day.  Tried to take Adam to flag football practice and game and spent an hour in traffic only to find out that the road was flooded and closed.   We went back home.

 June 4:  Went on a hike around Burke Lake (about 4.5 miles), then spent the rest of the day doing yard and house work.

June 5:  As per ward tradition, the girls who went to Mormon prom wore their dresses to church today.   Here's a glimpse of four of my beautiful Laurels!   Love these girls!

Walking and Robots

February 4:  

Yes, yes.   I may or may not desperately need to re-dye my roots, but hair ugliness and all, I love this picture of Emma and I on a walk this afternoon.  

We walked while Ellie and Adam created a voice controlled robot with the S family.   I love their robotics "class".  

How do you like the daily recaps and blogposts?  They're less time consuming than the blogging I was doing before, but certainly not as interesting or fun to write.     I do like the fact that it's capturing more of a glimpse of our day-to-day happenings and not just the bigger events, but I'm still not sure I've found my groove.

We will see.... 

********************

Pioneer Day Picnic

One of the things I love about my friend, Rachel, besides the fact that she's an awesome mom, a great listener, someone who also loves photography, baking, and blogging, is that she's good at making things happen.  While I only daydream about planning fun social activities with our friends, she actually goes the distance and makes it happen!

Take this Pioneer Day picnic at the park...

She made the decision to do it in the first place... 

did all the advertising for it...

and planned all of the activities.   

It turned out to be a great way to celebrate our pioneer ancestors' sacrifices and to be reminded why it's such a blessing to have great friends in our lives.

***********************************

Genealogy and Foxes

While Adam, Emma, and friends continue with their week at genealogy camp at the National Archives...

Ellie and I are enjoying our daily mornings on the town.  

We're doing a ton of walking around, which is something Ellie doesn't normally love, but she's being a good sport about it and hasn't complained a bit!   On Wednesday we hit up the Library of Congress (a good 1-1/4 mile walk from the National Archives), then did some watercolor painting in the Botanic Gardens, but weirdly, I have no photos of either.  

After the camp was done for the day, we all went on a little stroll through the sculpture gardens.


Then explored the Natural History Museum for a while.


The kids enjoyed some silly photo-ops...


which got sillier...


and sillier....


and sillier...


and sillier!  



After we finished exploring, we went to the airport to pick up my sister-in-law and nephews.     They've been living in England for the last few months and we were SOOOOOOO excited to see them again!    

After the airport, we got home just in time for me to order pizza for dinner and head off to mutual.   I then had a horrible night's rest when we discovered first-hand exactly what the fox says and it wasn't anywhere near as melodic as that dang song that gets stuck in my head far too easily!   

  *************************

Marine Corps Museum

What better way to spend the Friday before Memorial Day than to visit the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia?    

In our 15+ years of living in the DC area, it was a place we'd passed a million times while traveling along I95, but never  had visited before. 

It is a very well-done museum that tells the story of the marine corps from the 1770's to modern day.  

The museum is bright and flooded with natural light. 

And the exhibits are interesting to kids and adults alike.

They are also interactive...

and emotionally moving. 

The life-size dioramas were powerful...

and the detail amazing.  This room depicting a war zone in Korea is kept several degrees cooler than the rest of the museum to let visitors,  in a very small way, experience a little of the discomfort that the soldiers experienced during battle.  

This desert war zone  diorama is heated to be uncomfortably warm. 

It is a fantastic museum that instilled in us a newfound appreciation for those who serve in the military.   I will now be recommending it to friends who come to visit the area.      

Even the grounds are peaceful and beautiful.   

It was a great way to engage the kids in conversations about how blessed we are to live in a land that is free.  Free because of the sacrifices of so many.  

God Bless America! 

******************************

What We Do For Fun

So what do we do for fun around our house?    

Here's a little glimpse:   

As a family, we love reenacting cooking shows from the Food Network.    My kids (all of them) beg for us to do these on a regular basis.  Glen and I find them a little draining, and especially dread the massive kitchen mess that always ensues, but we try to humor them about once a month or so.  Most of my kids are now better cooks than I am and it's been fun to see even Ellie and Adam stretch themselves to create really tasty (and even beautiful) food without recipes.   I like to think that their future spouses will thank me profusely someday.

Adam, Emma, and AnnaLisa were the judges this time.  Mommy was the first one out and Daddy was the winner.  

Ellie plays dress-up with her friends.  Dress-ups lately have gotten a lot more sophisticated than the fancy princess outfits of her younger days and now they usually involve some elaborate role playing in a historical time period.   This day it was a princess and Little House on the Prairie mash-up where Ellie was  "poor Rapunzel"  and Hannah the faithful servant girl who tried to help Rapunzel.  There was no electricity and they had to use candles and cook over a fire.     

Adam plays strategic board games.   Give him any strategy game and with practice, it won't take long until he will be the new family champion! This day he was playing 10 Days In Europe Game , but "7 Wonders" is his current favorite.  We play games together as a family at least a few times a week and for sure whenever we get together with the "S" family!   Adam also just started an every other week chess club with some local homeschoolers, since he can't talk any of his sisters (or mother) into playing that with him.  

Emma makes fancy breakfasts.   The breakfasts shown below are not for a special occasion of any sort. She just really seems to enjoy that quiet early morning time in the kitchen to create beautiful and delicious food.  

 I tote kids around to their doctor's visits, classes, etc., and try to take advantage of moments to spend special time with a kid whenever I can.    Yesterday Ellie had her appointment with a seizure specialist (also known as an epileptologist) downtown, so when her appointment was finished and I realized we were only about 2.5 miles from the National Zoo and still had a couple hours before the next kid had somewhere to be, it was a no-brainer.   The zoo was empty, the animals were active, and there were zoo keepers everywhere eager to share information about the animals to anyone who would listen.  We learned all about how they track pandas in the wild and best of all got to watch the very cute baby panda playing for a while!    

Cami makes cupcakes.  This clearly isn't a surprise, but perhaps the fact that after 3-years of being in business that she still regularly fills big orders for people and that she's still willing to make special orders for mom, may be a bit more of a surprise.  She recently held a big sale for her entrepreneurship class and sold 11-dozen cupcakes (on left) and  a week later was still willing to make these "brainy" cupcakes for me to share with friends celebrating another friend's anniversary of overcoming brain cancer.

Glen makes chocolate covered strawberries!    Okay, so this was just for Valentine's Day, but it was such a sweet gesture and so much more interesting than showing a picture of him watching BYU sports, that I had to throw it in.  

I had to laugh to see how many of our family's past-times involve food.   What can I say?  I think I'm raising a family of foodies!    Even Spencer sends me pictures of meals he's proudly prepared for himself….complete with the  budget friendly ingredients of beans and rice!  

One of Spence's culinary creations

So what do YOU do for fun in your house?