Retro Hotel

We made it to Williamsburg in time for naps. The front desk was nice enough to let us check in an hour early. We feel like stars in Back to the Future. These are some of our amenities:
VCR (no DVD)
Boom box with cassette (no CD)
19 inch TV with a remote that does not work
Chain lock that is hanging by a screw
A game room with Ms. Pacman and Gorilla war!
We do have free wireless!!!!
Naps were HYSTERICAL! Lincoln and Ethan were literally bouncing on the bed. Nate got into bed with Lincoln and I closed by eyes next to Ethan. About five minutes into the chaos, I hear, "Lincoln that is my face." I look over to see Lincoln's legs flailing on Nate. The good news is that they both fell asleep! They both seem to be feeling more comfortable here. I can't wait to walk into that bedroom and see where they are sleeping. I hope one of them is in a bed!

It's sort of like a Pentagon

Nate and Dad had their Pentagon tour scheduled for this afternoon. We knew that it was scheduled during the boys naps, so we had lunch and went to the playground.
The boys ran and played and had a big ole time!
There were some great monkey bars. The boys took turns on all of them. Lincoln was able to hang on for a few seconds each time! That boy is strong! Dad and Nate headed to the Pentagon for their tour. When they got back, they had so many stories. Apparently, the tour guide was describing the building to a kid and said, "Well, it's not really a circle. It's not really a square." Dad says, "It's sort of like a Pentagon." See what we have been dealing with this week. :)
We ate dinner on the deck again tonight. Dad spent the majority of the dinner talking about taking the boys to Austin for a week. Nate and I spent the majority of the dinner telling him he's crazy!
For the rest of the night he did everything in his power to stir the kids into mass chaos. He gave them cookies, reece cups, cheese, and sodas. Then he had them jumping on the bed and tickling each other.

He finished the night reading books, singing songs, hugging, and kissing!

Taking it easy

Everyone decided to take it easy on Sunday! It was definitely our day of rest. After our only hour of peace and quiet from the boys....at CHURCH,(Lincoln talks from the time he gets up until the time he goes to bed.) we got some lunch and headed to Gravelly Point to watch the planes. The runway was switched today. Instead of the planes landing over us, they were taking off right above us.
Yesterday, on the metro, I told Dad we were not sitting in the first or last car because of the recent Metro crash. At lunch toay, he laughed and said, "We can't sit in the first or last Metro car, but we can sit at the end of the runway." That's ironic!
We were eating and watching and of course Nate's eye caught this plane!Marilyn sent some new shoot planes and we brought those along. They lasted about five minutes before Ethan shot one at a family sitting on the ground.
You can't get tired of the view of the Capitol!

The boys love having their Papa here with them. Ethan woke up today and said, "Is Papa still here?" Last night they did some snuggling on the couch.
This morning we started our day off at Dunkin Donuts and headed to the Metro. We got tickets to Ford's Theater a few days ago. Apparently, you sit in the Theater and listen to a Ranger recount the day Lincoln died. When we arrived and saw this line, we panicked, but everyone made it in .

We had quite a wait in line and in theater. These boys were not sitting quietly!
We ate some lunch, headed home, and each took a good nap!
After naps, we headed to eat dinner, but I saw the Barber shop and we quickly turned in! Lincoln was the only one happy about it! Ethan pouted the entire time, but he looks cute!
We went to the Japanese steakhouse for dinner. The boys eat so good there!

Tomorrow we are going to take it fairly easy. We are off to church and then to the park for a picnic!

Papa's visit-Day One

Papa got into town yesterday afternoon. We had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, and I took Ethan to Vacation Bible School. We took the boys to school today, so we could have hard core tourist day. Today was water day at the boys school, so they didn't mind too much. We started the day off at Mt. Vernon. Thankfully, it was a gorgeous day. We had quite a wait to get into the house. If anyone knows my Dad, they know you never know what is going to pop out of his mouth. When you add Nate to the mix, who laughs at everything he says, he's ten times worse. We had a little old lady who advised the entire line to spit out their gum. I have to admit she talked about spitting your gum out entirely too much, but the boys cracked gum jokes for the rest of the day.
We walked down to the Potomac and up through the farm land. The last time we visited, we had to cut the trip short because of the boys. It was nice to see everything this time.
After three hours at Mt. Vernon, we left the Estate and decided to head to the Washington's Grist Mill and Distillery. This place was completely different from Mt. Vernon. There was NO ONE there. We had maybe 20 people in our group by the time we left. I don't think any of us expected this place to be as informative and interesting as it was. We left the tourist scene and headed to the Base for some groceries. Tonight we had an awesome meal, and took a walk down to the creek.

At the bottom of our place is a park with a creek and some trails. The best part of the night came when we decided to do a little off trail walking with Nate pushing the stroller through a field with flip flops on. Dad made a comment that it was going to be hard to beat today! I think we can do it! :)

"Daddy Boy"

He's been spending time with Daddy each night while Ethan and I are at Vacation Bible School. He woke up this morning and said, "Daddy Boy."
This picture was taken at dinner last night. The spiky hair is from chip grease. Yes, he was putting his chips in his hair!

School Confusion

Ethan and I started Vacation Bible School Sunday night. Both boys started new rooms at school. To top it all off, Memaw and Nan left the boys Monday morning. Needless to say, Monday morning was a little dramatic for them. Link was devastated when Memaw and Nan left. He did not want to go to school. Then I realized that Ethan thought we were going to Vacation Bible School instead of school. He was devastated when we pulled into the parking lot. This morning, after lots of explaining and talking about what was going to happen today, we had a successful drop off!

Advice

A friend of mine just found out she is pregnant for the first time. She's a teacher and is used to having her summers off. She asked me this week what am I going to do this summer? I laughed and said, "SLEEP, Sleep, and SLEEP some more!" Get it in now!
Yesterday, Nate and I had an awesome day together. We did some errands, had lunch, went to the pool, took naps, went to dinner, and saw a movie! This morning my friend came to mind and I thought about our yesterday. I need to tell her to spend as much quality time with her husband as possible as well! Nate is seriously one of the most involved dad's I have ever seen. So, I spend all my free time with him, but I have to share my quality time with two boys who love him almost as me and they are pretty selfish when it comes to their daddy! It was so nice to have him to myself and do things that we don't usually get to do! I do miss those little stinkers, but I am pretty excited we get one more day with each other!

Handbasket

It seems disaster strikes at the thought of Nate leaving us. Hunter has been perfect since Nate has been back. Yesterday he peed on the floor for the fun of it. I think he saw Nate carrying the suitcase out and he started plotting when and where he would leave his wrath.
Yesterday, we had a plumber come look at a leak we had in the garage. Apparently, the AC is on it's last leg. They suggest we get a new one. I don't know anything about ACs. How does one even go about researching this. Our landlady is in Indonesia. She is going to be of no help.
This morning all was well. I showered, had breakfast ready, brought the boys clothes down, and went to get them. Link was moving a little slow, but I thought he was just really tired. For some reason, Tuesdays are harder for us than Mondays. He started eating and then the screaming began. He kept rubbing his neck and saying, "neck hurt." I noticed he couldn't turn it to the left. It progressively got worse. I realized, I was not going to work today.
Ethan had his class cookout today. He started in about 7:30 this morning saying he was going to miss the cookout. Hurry....take me to school. SO, I loaded the boys up and headed to daycare. I dropped E off and then went to the ER (the appt. line couldn't find an appt.) After an hour and half in the ER they suggested Motrin (which I had already given him), and sent us on our way. I had the AC people come back out. Luckily, it's nothing that has to be done today or even this week. I have time to do some research.
Bob and Marsha are coming to get the kids until Sunday. At least if any disaster arises tomorrow, I will have some backup.

Gone again

Nate had to go to Kansas City for the week. I am spending the night watching Say Yes to the Dress, Don't tell the bride, and the Bachelorette. It's definitely a girl's night!!

Too much to do

The weekends are so short. We have so much stuff we want to do that it seems we can never fit it all in. That is another reason my blog postings have been so sparce. Yesterday, we headed to the zoo. We took our time and had breakfast at Einstein bagels. We knew we would get to the zoo pretty late. We had low expectations of what we would be able to see before the boys pooped out.
Last time we headed into the DC to go to a museum, I noticed tons of flowers. I asked Ethan to take a picture for me and he did. On our walk yesterday, Ethan noticed more flowers and asked me if I wanted to take another picture of him. What a ham!We have such a stroller dilemna evertime we go somewhere. Lincoln always wants to walk and Ethan always wants to ride in the stoller. You would think this would work out fine, but Lincoln is so slow and usually has his own agenda. We end up carrying him most of the time.
Only one panda was out yesterday. Hopefully the other one was in the air conditioning. It was HOT!
This elephant had the right idea. It was so hot we all wanted to jump in that pool with him.
We saw these two animals and that was about it. We stopped to eat lunch and we all collectively decided to get somewhere cool. The strangest thing happened. Almost immediately after we left the zoo, a breeze started up. Our walk to the metro was refreshing! Ethan posed one more time for me.
I am LOVING having a pool in the neighborhood. We loved going to the rec center in Dayton. That pool was amazing, but it is so nice just walking down to the pool. Ethan made a new friend todayLincoln on the otherhand is not so in love with the pool. He screams all done the whole time he is in there.
This summer is going to amazing!!! Only two more weeks of school. HURRY!!!

The new bedtime book.

This is our new bedtime favorite. Lincoln LOVES IT!

Leap Torture

For the past two days I have been CRAVING sweets and chocolate! I wanted a treat after dinner bad, but we didn't have anything here. I know that Nate and I usually disagree on our treats. He goes for salty or ice cream. SO, I decided to enlist a little help from my biggest sweet fan, Ethan. While we were eating dinner, I asked him if he could have ANY treat what would he pick. He picked ice cream. I thought he needed to hear all the dessert possibilities, so I started listing them all. It worked, and he picked brownies. Nate and I started talking about our DREAM dessert: white cake, with butter cream icing layers, mixed with Reece cup's, M&M's, and oreo cookie, with ice cream on the side. We were both drooling just talking about it. Ethan looks over at me frowning, and says, "Stop talking about that. You are torturing me!" After that statement, we had to stop the torture and head out in the rain to get a treat. We settled on yellow cupcakes with chocolate icing and gobs on the side! Don't these boys look tortured.

Trash Man

Lincoln LOVES his trash man! For some reason we have a different color trash truck each time they come. Lincoln knows almost all of his colors. Check out the sound effects he makes while I ask him what color the trash man (truck) is.

Gravelly Point

Saturday was rainy and yucky. The boys were getting stir crazy. The weather was gorgeous today, so we took a picnic lunch to Gravelly Point. It's a few hundred feet from the runway at Reagan National Airport. The planes literally fly right above your head!

Notice the shadow of the airplane wing on the boys.
It was LOUD. Ethan always covered his ears, and Lincoln yelled, "LOUD."
On one side was the airport and on the other was the Washington Monument, the Potomac River, and the Capitol.
We think Lincoln was helping to land the planes.
We took last summer's shoot planes. Those planes have seen better days, but they were a hit nonetheless.

We knew it was time to come home when Lincoln fell in the only mud puddle.