Mt Vernon!

Mom and Dad Roring are out visiting us for Mom's spring break. We were able to go to the Zoo on Thursday (which I didn't get pictures of sadly). And then able to go to Mt. Vernon on Friday. At the very beginning of the "tour" you watch a movie to give you a little background on Washington. During the introduction, Jack fell forward off his chair, and hit the chair in front of his with the bridge of his nose. So Jack and I missed the movie because he was in a lot of pain. It is a decent sized gash. Poor little guy.

Anyway, we really enjoyed Mt. Vernon. It is beautiful and has a lot of history. Behind us here is Washington's flag. It has 13 stars.

And here is his tomb. We learned that in his will, it stated that they needed to build a new nicer, bigger tomb for him and his family. So this is actually the second place he was buried. 

We got to ride in a horse drawn carriage. Jack was a little bit hesitant at first, but then he loved it. Right by where the carriage was, they had a cool invention by Washington. They would put a bunch of the wheat stalks in this big building and then have the horses trot in a circle on the stalks. This would separate the wheat and it would fall down through slats on the floor. Washington was a great agricultural inventor. 

This was their mansion. It was kind of sad to hear how little time Washington actually got to spend at his home. He did a lot and sacrificed much for the good of his country. 

Six Flags!

We were able to get a great deal on Season tickets to Six Flags that started during last years fright fest. (The season passes were the same price as a one day pass). They are good through this whole year as well, and include free parking. Another cool feature about our "gold passes" is that they let you bring a friend for free 5 different times. So today we brought Mom and Dad Roring with us. It was a light jacket, yet sunny kind of day.

Jack really enjoyed himself. Most of the rides were themed around his favorite vehicles: cars, busses, helicopters, trains, etc... He was truly in heaven. 

This is the car ride. You get to drive the car around the track. There is a pedal, so you pick the speed, and steer around the path. I think this was his favorite of all the rides. He kept running back to it at full speed, no matter where we were in the park, yelling "cars!"

This was the train ride. It takes you around a bunch of the rides, and we were the only ones riding it. (It was definitely not a crowded day)

And this was the smaller train ride. Very short and very slow. There was one part where I was pretty sure I could crawl faster then the train was going. 

 

And this was the hot air balloon ride that takes you up pretty high. As you can see, Jack liked looking down on all the rides (and especially the train) down below. 

And this is the park that Jack loved. If you notice the yellow slide on the far left: that was the slide he decided on. He's a brave little guy for sure. 

And this is the Looney Tunes Prop Warehouse. There are these little foam balls everywhere, and places that suck them up to to the top floor, so the bigger kids can shoot them back down. 

Jack quickly discovered that once it stopped sucking, he just had to push the button on the top to start it up again. 

He climbed up to the top floor and came down this slide. It was super super long. 

And his last ride of the day was on the "copters." This ride is cool because the kid decides when to make it go up and down. There is a lever that controls the height. There is also a fake steering wheel. 

And although we really only took pictures of the kiddie rides, do not fret. Us adults did go on the big kid rides. We took turns playing with Jack. Mom and Dad's favorite was the "ride of steel" that is a superman themed ride. It goes extremely high, and is a really smooth ride. My favorite stands as the batwing, that makes you fly like a bat. But we tried a new ride today called the Jinx that takes you from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds. It was particularly awesome :) 

Is It Really Finally Over?

We have been plagued by a Utah winter, but in Virgina. Not appreciated. I do not miss Utah winters. I do not like snow. But today it was sunshiny and warm! We finally got to enjoy that beautiful playground that we have in the back yard!

Jack likes to spin up the swing, and then lay on the swing and let it unravel.

Cherry Blossom Festival: It Begins

 The Cherry Blossom Festival has just begun. We went into DC on Saturday to enjoy the activities at the Building Museum. Jack's favorite was making a cherry blossom out of balloons. As hard as I tried to convince him to pick another color, he could see the pictures of the cherry blossoms, and he wanted to make a pink flower. He picked out all of the balloons himself.

And to go along with the cherry balloons, there was this.....creature.....

Jack found him to be a bit intimidating. He kept calling it a bug. 

Then we got to decorate a decal for the van that they had on display. Jack loved the van so much. He just climbed into the back seat and sat down. It was really hard to convince him to climb out of the van, and as soon as we would walk away, he would start running back to it. As we left the museum he kept saying "bye car."

We did quite a bit of walking and Jack enjoyed the Navy fountains. He found a few kids to play with while we were there. And a fancy salad restaurant gave us some samples of their salads. Very delicious. 

And then we visited the botanical gardens because it is orchid season again! Jack loved their new fountain. It plays music and shoots colorful streams of water.

Cool Man

Tony recently taught Jack how to give thumbs up. He loves it. He sticks those thumbs in the air and says "cool, man."

My recent project in the new apartment involved making awesome cushions to sit on. This one fits in the window. This window is deep and great for sitting in to read. All it needed was some padding. So I went to Joanns and got some 2 inch thick padding and some super soft fabric. I sewed a cover for the padding and put velcro on the one side so that I can remove it to wash. Where you can see the edges tilting up, it covers the levers that open the window. 

And this is the beginning of my fireplace project. I have covered the whole thing in cardboard, and then made a smaller pad for Jacko to sit on. It's a cute little cubby that fits him perfectly. Now I just need to paint the sides so they are not cardboard brown and duct tape silver. 

And Jack wants to say thank you to Ariel for his birthday present of Jelly Beans. We did not let him eat them all in one sitting, but they are definitely gone now. :)

My Little Helper

For the last few weeks I have been watching my friends 7 month old during the day. I got some of the old baby toys out, and Jack has become extremely possessive of them. His favorite is this walker toy. He likes to climb in and then run in circles really fast until it almost tips over. He has had a hard time sharing this particular toy, so it has been good for him to learn. He loves the baby and gets excited every morning when he gets dropped off. 

He is also becoming more and more independent. He loves to help me cook and this past week when we had a snow day, Shelyn and her girls came over and we made crepes. Jack sliced 2 packages of strawberries and loved every minute of it. He also taste tested a few of the strawberries he was cutting, just to make sure they were good. :)

Tony's Birthday

Tony's birthday was a little bit stolen by me because of the musical I was helping with at the middle school. The 2nd performance was the night of his birthday, so he spent his birthday supporting me. Such a great husband! Fortunately, we were better able to celebrate the weekend after. 

My mom was here visiting and we also got to have Norm and his family over, and then some of our friends. Tony wanted a white cake with cream cheese frosting. We realized too late that we didn't have candles. Whoops.