Throwback Thursday- Washington DC

OK, let's be honest, everything at this point is a "throwback."

 So at the beginning of April Luke and Lauren came down and Luke was going to work on our house while he was here. (That is another post) We thought that we'd try to do a little adventure while they were here. We took Nate and Graham out of school and went down to Washington DC. The Dinosaur Hall in the Natural History Museum was closing at the end of April, and would not be opening for another 5 years. So we wanted to get in one last trip before that happened.

 We took a trip into the Butterfly enclosure while we were there. We had never been in that part before, and it was neat to see all of the butterflies all over the place. At one point one landed on my arm and just sat there for a while. I felt like a Disney Princess.

 After the Museum we took a little walk through the sculpture garden. Finn and Bjorn needed some run around time before getting in the car for the long drive home.

 After we said goodbye to everyone we walked over to the Air and Space Museum for a little bit. The kids found these cool little space helmets in the gift shop.

It was a fun little trip down to the Mall. Now the Washington Monument is open again, so I think we'll try to go down sometime and get the kids up to the top of that. They have never been, and I have not been to the top since I was a little kid.

Happy Easter!

 So, Jesse finally showed me how to upload pictures to the computer. I have been stuck ever since we upgraded to Windows8. So now I have pictures when I want them, and can blog again! I know you all missed me. :) So we'll start with something kind of recent.
We had a lovely Easter here. Nate was finally feeling a little better after having Pneumonia. He was super sick all week, with 4 straight days of a fever at 104* When I took him to the doctor, she said his lungs sounded clear, but said I could take him in for an x-ray if I wanted to, but she sounded like it would be a waste of my time. When his fever didn't go away, I did finally take him in, and sure enough those lungs were full of gunk. So we got him going on antibiotics, and he started to feel better eventually.
We had a nice slow Easter morning. Church was at 11:00, so we had time. I'm pretty sure that the kids only ate candy for breakfast, even though I offered other food.

 I always want to buy them new duds for holidays, but most of the time I can kind of rein myself back since it is quite expensive. This year though, I went to a sale, and had a coupon to help me out, and got them some cute things.

 Nate was not super thrilled about life at this point because he just had taken some medicine.

 That evening Grammy and Grandad and Cammi came to have dinner with us. We did a little egg hunt while the waiting for dinner to be ready.

Look Out World

Well, I think I may start blogging again. Did you know that I still check my blog almost every day, just so that I can read those of you who are good and still work on your blog? And every day I'm reminded of just how bad I have been with this history of our family. But I need to start up again.
I'm not going to attempt to go back and relive every event that I have missed this past year, but I may hit on some of the highlights. Right now our house is in shambles, due to a flooded toilet, so maybe I'll talk about that too. Tomorrow is expected to be a large snow storm around these parts, so that should be fun. Anyway, I just am dropping by to say keep your eye out, I'm back!

Spring hikes

 So far we have done two hikes this year. The first one was over Memorial Day weekend. We went to a place called Bear's Den right along the Appalachian trail. The kids were a little apprehensive about bears, but fortunately we didn't see any. There were rocks to climb over, and it was a nice day. Of course, that was when my allergies were at their worst, and when you have oak and elm allergies, hiking in the woods is not the best idea. I won't go into detail, I'll just say it was not pretty!

 We also went back up to the little Washington Monument in the Maryland portion of the Appalachian trail. We've been there before, but I think it's been 4 years. It's nice to be at a point this summer where all of the kids can participate in hikes, and Olivia doesn't need to be carried too often.

 My kids are pretty cute sometimes.

Easter

 This year we went to our community Easter egg hunt. It was one of those things where most of the eggs were just strewn about on the ground. My kids don't tend to be the die hard hunters. They kind of pick up a few, maybe fill their basket, and then are done. They all had fun, and Aunt Cammi came to join us with some of her friend's children.

 You might have to blow up the picture to find Olivia in her little zebra jacket grinning behind everyone here with the Easter bunny. Can you find her?

 Then we came back to our house and did another egg hunt. The kids enjoyed themselves.

 But soon my boys got tired of things and had to play some soccer with Daddy.

Spring Soccer

 So this year for the first time we signed up the boys for soccer. Nate was already almost 8 years old, so we figured that we ought to start him now if he was ever going to start. Both boys did really well for this being their first season.

 One thing that we learned about Spring Soccer is that it is cold. There were many practices and games where we were huddled in blankets.

 Graham was one of the better players on his team, but then again, there were many players who would much rather roll down the hill than kick the ball. But all the same, he scored many goals, (not that they keep track.) and he was a great defender. He was super excited about his trophy in the end.

 Nate was also a great player, and picked up on things really quickly. He was playing with kids who had been playing for several years, and he caught right up to them. He too scored several goals (not that they were keeping track here either.) and he was also a great defense player, which is the position he preferred to play.

We signed them up for a soccer camp this summer, and with the exception of some minor heat exhaustion from Graham one day, they did really well and had a lot of fun. Nate pretty much eats, sleeps, and breathes soccer here, and can tell you the names of several of the professional soccer players as well as the teams that they play on. Of course, Jesse is loving this, since he served his mission in Barcelona, which is one of the best teams in the world right now.
We're signing them up for the fall again, and it appears that we will now be a soccer family!