Kites, Carousels & Taxis

This past Saturday the National Kite Festival took place on the National Mall. Its an annual event put on by the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and last year we happened upon it quite by accident. We actually ended up on the metro with the thousands of other spectators but I do believe we were the only ones that had absolutely no idea why the trains were so crowded...this year, we were more prepared and took on the crowds by choice!

Because we learned a valuable lesson last year about the crowds, we decided to again metro into the the city which immediately put Owen in an indescribable mood. I brought along his brand new Toy Story kite featuring Buzz & Woody and we set out after his afternoon nap. Since we waited until he finished his nap we actually didn't get to the mall until the festival was technically over at 4pm. This really worked to our advantage though as we didn't have to fight the crowds on the metro, and there were less people out flying kites which meant Owen was free to fly, crash and otherwise be crazy without us worrying about too many other people. He liked flying his kite, but I think Robert and I had more fun with the kite then he did. It was a fabulous day outside and perfect for flying a kite, but it certainly could have been just a tad bit warmer. About 10 minutes into our fun, Owen spotted the Carousel on the mall and started asking to go for a ride. Since its been closed all winter and every time we drive by we promise a ride upon its reopening, we had to make our way over and enjoy our first carousel ride of 2010. In typical toddler style, as we stood in line to get on the carousel Owen stared doing the potty dance but denied the need to go until after our ride was 3/4's over, and the museums were about to close. We hightailed it to the Castle and got inside with 3 minutes to spare! And thankfully, no accidents to report :) Once we got back outside the wind had really picked up and it was pretty chilly so we decided to grab a taxi to Chinatown and get dinner at an awesome eatery called Matchbox. Owen was stoked about his first ever taxi ride and was intrigued that he did not have to ride in a car seat. After that, every taxi we spotted he said "That was just our taxi Mama!" And if anyone asks what he did at the kite festival, he tells them that "we didn't have our car, so we had to take a taxi!"

Here are a few pictures of the excitement-

1st Dentist Visit

Last week Owen went to the dentist for his very first dental exam. Back in the fall we had noticed a slight discoloration on his lower teeth which prompted me to make him an appointment. Little did I know, pediatric dentists are in high demand here in Arlington & Alexandria and most have up to a six month wait for new patient appointments. Luckily, this was no emergency so I went with the dentist who had the most referrals and made an appointment for March 15, 2010...at the time, that seemed like years away!

I was babysitting that morning so Robert took off work to take Owen to the appointment. For weeks I had been prepping Owen about the dentist every night when I brushed his teeth. I would ask him "do you want to show the dentist how clean your teeth are?" "Do you want her to count your teeth and take pictures of them?" and I told him the dentist would give him a new tooth brush and maybe let him pick out a toy. By the morning that Robert actually took him, Owen was totally stoked to go to this dental visit! Robert wondered what I had done to the poor kid to make him so excited...ha!

So as I mentioned, I unfortunately did not get to go to the appointment with them so my story is not first hand. But Robert, knowing that I was feeling a bit sad for not being able to tag along was great at relaying all of the mornings events for me. Here are the highlights-

Owen had to wear sunglasses because the light they used to look at his teeth was so bright (and bonus points because the sunglasses were DIEGO!)

Owen made the magic tooth polisher turn on and off by simply saying "Go!" and "Stop!"

The magic tooth polisher tickled Owens finger when he told it to "Go!"

Daddy was thirsty and got a drink of water squirted right into his mouth, and so did Owen!

The dentist counted Owens teeth and found that all of the necessary ones are in and are healthy.

Owen got to pick out a green bouncy ball that glows in the dark, got a new toothbrush and LOVES Dr Jayne Delaney's office!

Grandma's Visit

In the spirit of continuing to get caught up with my posts, let me wrap up our month of February. At the beginning of the month, we got dumped on with snow, the middle of the month we headed out to Wisp and at the very end of the month Grandma Bonnie came out for a 4 day visit. Owen was super excited to have her coming and he came with me to the airport that Wednesday night to pick her up. He and I had lots of fun playing in the baggage claim waiting for her to come, until we realized we had been standing at the wrong spot! We hurried over to the correct place just in time to catch her before she walked outside to look for us :) Owen ran to her and was thrilled when she pulled out a Southwest Airlines toy plane for him.

For the next 2 days we stayed close to the house as Robert had to work and I was babysitting, so by Saturday we knew we needed to kick things up a notch. I had heard great things about the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum out by Dulles Airport so we thought we'd make the trek out there to see what it was all about. AWESOME is about the only word I would use to describe this place. Its like a giant airplane hangar with planes on the floor, hanging from the ceiling, and everywhere in between. They also have an exhibit of space shuttles with the USS Enterprise on display. So cool! Owen thought it was amazing and everywhere he turned there was more to see and explore. One of the great things is that it is extremely kid friendly and Owen had the opportunity to put on an astronaut glove, see the space suit up close, touch it, and explore so many other things. He sat in a little cessna airplane and could have gotten dressed up in a flight suit if he wanted to, but despite my attempt, he did not want to.

So we had a great time with Grandma, a great time at the "new space newsum" as Owen calls it and a fun time wrapping up the crazy month that was February!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May you have a world of wishes at your command,

God and his angels close at hand,

Friends and family their love impart &

Irish blessings in you heart!

Check out the link below to Pastor Marks blog for a bit o' history on this funny holiday :)

http://bit.ly/c5mVlh

Wisp

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we left the snow storm of 2010 and a gazillion feet of snow behind to head out for a break to sunny, fun, and SNOWY Wisp Mountain. We planned this getaway with our small group friends long before any of us dreamed that this winter we would have two snowfalls of "historic proportions" in Washington DC.

Despite the fact that many of us had already reached our maximum tolerance for snowfall in one year, we packed up our cars and headed out to a rented house in western Maryland for a fun weekend away from the city. On the way there I spied a sign at a church that read "Whoever prayed for snow, thank you, now please stop" HA! I think that captured how many of us were feeling!

Here were my top 10 from the weekend-

Reasons # 1 & 2 why I love being with friends in a rented house out in WVA- Robert and I are sleeping in bunk beds (ha!) and it's 1:55am and Owen just went to bed!

Reason # 3- Owens first whirlpool bathtub experience

Reason # 4 I love the vacation house with friends- chaos when trying to order dinner for 16 people :)

Reason # 5- I can go for several hours without knowing where my child is, and yet, I know he is being loved on by many ♥

Reason # 6 that I love staying in a West VA house with good friends- delicious hot cooked breakfast and coffee with them all!

(Though he wasn't cooking breakfast in the pic, Robert was our resident morning chef)

Reason #7 that I love the WVA house- 7 boys making Valentines Day dinner for the ladies ♥

Reason #8- Owen playing Guitar Hero w/the guys and thinking he's really singing.

Reasons 9 & 10- the guys conspiring for weeks about the dinner they made, and the 7 of them parading into the dining room with roses for us :)

And if I had made a top 20 list, these moments would have surely been included-

Just When I Think...

Just when I think I am super motivated to blog and get caught up on the cute, funny and fun things Owen does, I turn around and realize its MARCH, and my last post was about something we did in December! Oy...will I ever truly be caught up?

Well, lets just start with January and see where this post lands us, shall we? It took quite a while to recover from our awesome Christmas trip to IL and our schedule was bumped around again a little bit when Laurie and Nakita came for a quick visit. It was during their stay that we realized how long it had been since we'd taken Owen to any of the fabulous, free museums that DC has to offer. To warm up from a walk around the National Mall while they were visiting, we popped into the National Museum of Natural History-the one I used to work in. Owen was immediately taken back by "Henry" the elephant and we knew it was going to be hard to leave. We visited the Mammal Hall and the new Oceans Hall and Owen still talks about many of the things he saw that evening. So the following weekend we hit up the Christmas Train Exhibit at the Botanic Gardens which was awesome and then the Air and Space Museum and American History Museum in the weekends after that. Now every time we talk about space ships and trains Owen wants to know what "new-newsum" we're going to take him to :) I love it! I want him to soak up all of these experiences and treasure them forever.

After all the touristy fun in January, we had some close to home fun due to the Blizzard of 2010. Some called it snowmageddon, some called it snowpacalypse, but my personal fav was snOMG! We got upwards of 36in of snow in a 24hr period and Washington DC was literally shut down for an entire week. But we certainly made the best of it! In between snow falls, we bundled up, pulled the jogging stroller out of hiding and walked down to Shirlington for dinner at our favorite restaurant The Carlyle. Here are a few pictures from that adventure-

And after that night, the snow fell, and fell, and fell so all we could do was make the best of it and have some fun around the neighborhood. Here are the highlights-

Phew- Ok, so several naps, bottles, lunch, and dirty diapers later I've gotten this post to the middle of February. At least thats better then where we were before right? Coming up next I'll post about our vacation away from all of this snow...to find more snow out in NW Maryland at Wisp Mountain Resort :) Stay tuned...hopefully I'll get that post up before our swimming pool opens for the summer! HA!