William in D. C.

Wednesday

 

What a day! What a day!

We know how much William likes to ride on a train, loves museums and he had just learned about the White House in kindergarten. So Papa had bought train tickets a while ago. He could not get tickets for a tour inside the White House though. You needed to request 6 months ago.

We had to get up VERY early because the train left at 7 am. William was ready though.

 

 

 

Ready to board.

 

 

We had planned so carefully. I had laid out snacks and drinks and made sandwiches for breakfast the night before. Unfortunately, things on the table got packed. Things out of the fridge did not. But we had enough snacks until we had a coffee and bagel at Union Station after arrival.

 

 

Union Station is quite posh and Helen liked the staircase.

 

 

We took the Metro to a station close to the White House. The next thing William could check off because he wanted to ride a train underground.

 

 

At the White House.

 

 

William is cute but the lawn is a bit of a disgrace.

 

 

 

 

Security. OMG. Can't even just go across the street. Sigh.

VIDEO!

 

 

William was a trooper. He had to take many more steps with his little legs then we do. We decided not to have an agenda and just to have fun. We missed seeing the cherry blossoms but so what. There is so much to see in DC and you can't see everything.

 

 

I posted this photo on Facebook "William is holding things up here".

 

 

We went into the Smithonian Museum of Natural History. He loved it! There was so much to see. Here only a few of the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

We splurged and ate in the cafeteria ... and made fun of the "gold-plated" salad and peanut-butter-jelly-sandwich.

 

 

 

Of course there was also a department with meteorites.

 

 

This touched me the most. I don't think I would like to be remembered like Josef J. Fénykövi.

 

 

 

And on we walked. The sun was shining right into William's eyes. But you have to take a picture with the capital behind you. Don't you! (even if it is not flattering of Omi)

 

 

 

 

Oh, another of William's favorite interests. He and Ur-Opa Heinz would have had a lot to talk about. Me, I was happy about the bench.

 

 

In a real plane. He had to look and see what the thing he just turned did to the wings.

 

 

Interactive paper-plane making and flying.

 

 

 

We were almost out of the building when he decided he had not been in the space lab yet. Thanks, Papa. You can see them just disappearing.

 

 

We could not have had a better day ... weather wise and all. Trees and bushes blooming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

William's little legs did it just to James and my favorite pub across from Union Station. We stop there almost every time we are in Washington. It's dinner time.

 

 

 

The 7 pm to go home. Everything so exciting for William.

 

 

 

Bye-bye!

 

 

Several of the photos are from Helen. The following is of course one of them. Once it's dark outside and not much to see ...

 

 

We were home around 9:30 pm. It had been a wonderful day. Somehow seeing things a bit through William's eyes. He had been great and was asleep in a few seconds.

Tomorrow we can sleep in a little. I hope.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Yeah! Visitors from TN

Monday March 21

 

Helen and William arrive at RIC just before 6 pm. The other passengers where smiling how William was running and calling our names.

 

 

Helen shared the next two pictures from their travels. William is a very good traveler.

 

 

 

Some dinner and then William helped with his bed.

VIDEO 1

VIDEO 2

 

 

 

Tuesday 22nd

 

I had told Helen that I knew a Quilting Teacher who would come to the house and would teach her anything she wanted to learn. I thought she wanted to learn how to quilt by hand and classes where never at the right time. Helen wanted it early so we had the rest of the day to do other things. Phoebe came at 9 am.

(Papa and William went soon to a park but Papa forgot his phone so .. no pictures)

 

 

Phoebe showed us samples. There are samples of quilting with small stitches which blend in.

 

 

There is quilting with thicker thread which is supposed to show off.

 

 

I forgot to take a photo of what Helen was working on. We found the perfect "orphan block" and she tried both techniques.

After the lesson and lunch we all went shopping. William needed new shoes and summer things. The boy is growing! We had such a good coupon! Then he was patiently waiting while his Mommy tried things on.

 

 

After that we arranged to meet Auntie Sarah after her work with Caleb at a Sweet Frog place. Oh, the boys had fun.

 

 

 

 

 

Caleb has to wipe his mouth. He has always been good doing that.

 

 

 

After that we decided to all go to "Auntie's house". The cousins had so much fun playing together.

VIDEO!

 

 

 

 

 

We order pizza take-out. Papa had to go twice though because the girl who had taken the order had totally screwed it up. At least it was free then. The second time William had to go with Papa to help to make sure it would be right. It was delicious though.

On the way back to our place I had quite a job to keep William awake in the car. He was asleep in his bed in no time.

 

 

Lovely day!

 

Posted with Blogsy

This and that again

I thought "what should I call this blog?". I left it way too long again and as always every day is full of activities. All are fun but not all worth writing about.

Back from our trip to the Azores Sarah invited us to dinner. Caleb was happy to see us (Feb 28).

 

 

March 4: oh no, not again. We woke up to this! Luckily it was gone soon.

 

 

 

 

I thought it was my turn to invite for dinner but of course it is easier "on Caleb's turf" so we took everything for taco salad "over the river". No problem.

We go early enough to have some playtime. Caleb is serious about his bedtime.

 

 

 

When you have this idea in your head it keeps working on you. I did a lot of sewing lately. This quilt "in honor" of the beaver which seems to cut down one tree after the other behind our place in Nashville is pieced and is waiting to be quilted.

 

 

James took it upon himself to take care of our two hibiscus during the winter. And it paid off!

 

 

 

Monday March 7 - James is training for his next Camino. If I mention that I would like to go for a hike, I don't have to say it twice. I suggested to do another part of High Bridge Trail State Park which goes through Farmville. This time we started close to Moran and walked to Rice and back.

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch!

 

 

We had lunch on exactly the same bench as before (see blog!).

 

 

 

This stretch of rail trail is not quite as interesting but we had a good time anyway. It was about 8 miles and we felt so good that we had to stop and celebrate at a DQ.

 

I

 

Saturday March 12 was just too busy. At a funeral service at our church I learned that rosemary branches are used in flower arrangements for rememberance.

 

 

Assembling a Retirement Emergency Kit for the party in honor of next-door neighbor Bill.

 

 

No picture of the Richmond Forum ... speaker former Primeminister of Australia Julia Gillard. Very very interesting!

We had to sleep fast because Caleb was arriving Sunday morning at 7:45 am and we lost an hour of sleep when we put our clocks forward an hour to summer time. Sarah was working this weekend and we offered to Wade to keep Caleb until after his nap.

Caleb was really no problem in church. After lunch we went for a little walk in the neighborhood. He seems to like concrete figures. He wanted to touch the rabbit.

 

 

 

 

Touch? Touch? O.k.!

 

 

 

There was also a Buddha in the middle of the flowerbed. "Touch baby?"

What else? My amaryllis has the third stalk with flowers without rest. I love watching it grow, developed and show its beauty for quite a while.

 

 

 

Besides doing volunteer work for the church I did a lot of sewing. I am going to write about the "curved log cabins the German way" on my other blog. I have finished writing the directions.

 

 

There was something else very exciting but I have to write about that some other time.

 

Posted with Blogsy