My goal for May???

To finally get caught up on the blog!!

When did life get so busy and distracting?  As crazy as life seems sometimes, I love where my life is right now and that my children are young and still need me so much.  It's busy, but so rewarding.  Unfortunately though, that means that the blog is often at the bottom of the to-do list.  For journal-ling purposes I really want to catch up, but I know it's more exciting to read about what we're doing now, rather than what we did 5 months ago!  Plus I want to get back to recording the fun happenings of every day life.  Such as the fact that Erin is thrilled about the fact that she learned to write question marks today,  Elaina has decided she wants to be a singer, an actress, and a surfer when she grows up, and Isaac's favorite words are "vroom" and "Thomas" (the train).  Oh, and "MAAAA-MA!" at the top of his lungs if he feels like I'm not giving him my full, undivided attention at all times.

Life is good - busy :) - but good!

(December): Christmas in DC

Another fun thing we did at Christmas time was to go downtown to the National Botanical Gardens and Capitol building to see the Capitol Christmas tree

I had also wanted to see the decorations at Union Station.  I love this train station and how simple and beautiful the architecture is.  The decorations were simple and beautiful as well.  This is the tree at the entrance to the station.

The front of Union Station

Capitol Building

The botanical gardens had an impressive replica of the National Mall in the entrance - from the Capitol Bldg, Jefferson, Lincoln, White House, and Washington Monument.  All the sculptures were made out of plant material.  It was so true to life. Next year we're going to see the train display there, which I've heard is fantastic too.  I feel like the longer I live here, rather than crossing things off my list that we've seen, I just discover more and more things to see, and actually start doubling and tripling my list! :)

Replica of the Capitol Building

Replica of the Washington Monument

Looking at a replica of the reflecting pool and Lincoln Memorial at the end

Our family at the Capitol Christmas Tree

(December): National Christmas Tree

As you know, I LOVE Christmas and I was so excited this year for all the new local Christmas decorations to see and activities to do.  The girls and I went one night to DC where the National Christmas tree was on display in the Ellipse (the open space between the White House and Washington Monument.  

National Christmas Tree

The tree had a big train display surrounding the entire base of the tree

There were smaller trees surrounding the larger one, one for each of the 50 states and territories.  We found Texas, Maryland, Nevada, and Utah (where the girls were each born).  I can't remember which of these is which

We also visited Santa Claus in his workshop - his Washington DC satellite office!

Do you see that list on the right side of the picture?  It's a print out of children's names and a check mark beside "naughty" and "nice."  We found Isaac's name and it said "nice" and then Erin insisted that she saw Elaina's name with a "naughty" check mark beside it.  Elaina almost burst into tears!  Luckily the print was small and we were far away.  When we tried to get a better look we discovered that the name was Evan, not Elaina!  We sure were nervous for a second though!

The workshop was pretty cute and surprisingly there was no line to get in to see Santa!

Erin had one important question for Santa - did he send Clif (our Elf on the Shelf) to come stay with us during December to see if we're naughty or nice?  Santa glanced over at me and admitted that yes, he had sent Clif and told us he's a silly little elf.  I'm so glad that Santa remembered!

Elaina talking to Santa

DC was so pretty with all the Christmas lights and decorations up.  Of course my camera doesn't capture how pretty it is.  This is the Willard Hotel, where the girls and I grabbed a hot chocolate after seeing the lights and National Tree downtown

The girls were excited to find these nutcrackers!

(November): Postal Museum

One of the girls had been asking about how mail gets from one place to another and how the mailman knows where it's going, so I thought it would be fun to take them to the postal museum to learn about mail delivery.  On some day off school last fall, we headed downtown for the day. 

The postal museum is located at the old post office, which served as the main post office for DC until the 1980s, I believe.  I hadn't realized this, but when the postal service was established, they built the post offices next to the major train station for that city in order to facilitate mail transportation.  Makes sense.  Anyway, the museum is right across the street from Union Station, which was the main train stop in DC for many years.  Both the post office and Union Station are gorgeous buildings.

It was fun to see different mail boxes from different countries

We found Canada's mail box.  I'm not sure if it's still the same, but when I was a kid, mail was delivered to a box outside our house, but we had to walk a couple blocks to a neighborhood box for mail that we were sending out.  I remember lots of walks down the street to drop off our mail, and it was kind of a privilege to walk mail down to the mailbox when my Mom had to send something out 

Playing in an old stagecoach

Practicing sorting mail

(October): Sad Day

It was a sad day for Mike when he had to switch our plates from Texas to Maryland!

(October): Heyser Farm Field Trip

I was able to accompany Erin's class on a field trip to a local small farm last fall.  They were learning about apples and were able to see the apple orchards, how the apples were sorted and cleaned, and how apple cider was made.  I thought it was interesting too!

Farmer Mike caught a rooster for each of the kids to pet

Watching the apples sort into small, medium, and large

Picking out her apple

yummy apple cider

(October): Lancaster, Pennsylvania

My Mom and I wanted to visit Amish country near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  It is about 2 hours from our house, so we left one morning right after the girls left for school and arranged for them to go to a friend's house after school for about an hour so we could have the full day there.  It was such a fun day. 

It is so picturesque, and as you can tell I've included a million pictures.  Something about the quiet, simple life that the Amish lead in this area adds to the beauty of the landscape.  The hills were dotted with small Amish farms. 

We didn't really have any particular itinerary, we just wanted to enjoy whatever landscape and culture we happened upon.  We found a driving tour of 5 covered bridges in the area, and based our drive roughly upon that.  We saw all of this beautiful landscape just driving from one covered bridge to the next. 

I love all these produce and flower stands along the road

All the Amish settlements looked something similar to this

This looked like a community center or something, but it was just pretty

clothes hanging on the clothesline

Doesn't this look like a picture in a calendar or magazine or something?

Love this!

Another Amish home with the horse and buggy out front

We'd see lots of Amish men and women on their bicycles going about their daily routines

Loved coming across these two men chatting on the roadside

There really is beauty in the simple life

I love this picture of these 2 men coming down the road towards us

You probably can't read the sign, but it says, "hitching post for horses and buggies only"

We saw lots of these roadsigns, and lots of the buggies

Someone's buggy at a farmer's market

I just love that this is how life is there.  Riding your bike to pick up some produce, and bringing it home in the wagon hitched to your bike.  It makes me want to ride my bike over to the local farmers market and bring it home in a wagon.  Somehow, it doesn't seem as picturesque when I do it :)

Isaac was great! He napped and read his books and got out to stretch his legs once in a while.  I'm grateful he's an easy kid who endures all of my crazy little excursions so well! :)