Chef Jeff & Chef Chef

So what do we do on Sunday afternoon's since the football season has ended.  We mope, that's what.

No just kidding.  There are plenty of things to do.

Today though, Momma had a good idea to have the boys make some banana bread from the 'nanna's that went a little past due.

They had a mostly good time doing it and seemed to work well together.  It was a hoot listening to them from the other room as I lay in bed not feeling well.

The bread was great and is just about gone already.  We'll have to have them do it again soon.

He kind of looks like a rebel chef on the t.v. show Top Chef what with the hair and bracelets.

A smiling Rongbo brings over some carefully measured flour.

And just as important as it is to measure, it's just as important on how you put it in the mix.

China boy takes his turn at the bowl to stir.

And so it was.  Oh...  about the title.  When Robby and Daddy started cooking together, Mr. "Role player" Robby, had to name us and he chose Chef Jeff and Chef Chef as our titles.  I should change the title of the post to reflect what Caleb's cooking name is, which is Chef Seth, but I'm feeling lazy...

Vacation - Post #12, A Few Photos From Delaware

There won't be much to this post as we didn't take many pictures.  Truly, we saw a lot of the same kind of country sites that you would see driving thru smaller towns in the Midwest, so reminders to take photos didn't present themselves too often.

We even got stuck in bad traffic due to road construction which made us feel right at home, but we didn't take any photos of that either.  Or any video, thank goodness, of Dear ol' Dad losing his cool!

This is on the Chesapeake Bay bridge which crosses some bay... I can't recall the name of it.  Possibly the Bay Of Fundy...  No telling. :-)

Again, on the bridge over Chesapeake Bay. This bridge is, by guess, about 3 miles long with a roughly 45 degree curve in at one point.

This was after we had done a whole bunch of driving, got caught in construction traffic, bought a pile of beers and probably some other stuff that I've forgotten now.  This is in the parking lot just East of the Chesapeake Bay and you can kind of make out a Marina a little to the left of Momma and the boys in the photo.  This was in the parking lot of the Fishermans Inn restaurant where we consumed a fine lunch.

Some of the gulls (a.k.a. "devil birds") that like to hang around hoping someone tosses them some of the duck food.

Robby and Momma with the bag full of duck food.  You see, here was yet another example of East coast folks who treated us in outstanding ways.  I stayed behind to pay and tip the waitress and quite possibly, to use the facilities before getting back into the car.  Momma, Robby and Calebber walked over to look at the water inlet and the ducks.  A local grandma drove up and saw a mom with two boys and asked if they would like to feed the ducks.  She ended up giving us a plastic grocery bag quite well stocked with food to feed to the ducks on the scene.  Good fun. Good lady.

This is driving back West across the Chesapeake Bay and that beachy/woodsy area that you can see is Sandy Point State Park.  What we did not know, and it was probably better that we didn't, is that quite often in the afternoons, this bridge gets closed due to winds.  If that were the case, instead of crossing this bridge, we would have had to drive North, pretty much to New Jersey and then back South to go up and around the Bay to get back to Gaithersburg, MD.  That would been less than desirable, to say the least, although I'm sure we would have saw some delightful stuff that we did indeed miss.

And that's about all I have to offer of this day.  

Only one more vacation post to go, and it may have been my favorite place of all that we visited, Harpers Ferry. 

Vacation - Post #11, The Washington Zoo

Zoo day on vacation. Otherwise known as taking the monkey's to see the monkey's.

Just kidding, but it's sort of true.  Truly, we like zoos.  We've been to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha probably a half dozen times or more and I will gladly go again next year.  We've taken the boys to the zoo in Guangzhou, China (as nearly all of the families went), the New Zoo up in Green Bay, our own Blank Park Zoo here in Des Moines and probably a few others that I'm forgetting.  Mom and Dad have also been to the Tulsa and Dallas zoos and again, probably more that I'm forgetting.

So we found ourselves at the Smithsonian National Zoo with our friend and tour guide, Marylynn, Liena, Ethan and on this day, their Grandma & Grandpa whom we had also met while in China.  I was excited to see them as they are fantastic people and we enjoyed their company the first time we met and every time since.  This visit was no different.

I was/am somewhat surprised about the location of this zoo.  It is located, roughly speaking of course, about 3 miles due North of the National Mall.  If you were not paying particularly close attention driving down Connecticut Ave, it would be entirely conceivable to drive right on past the entrance.

But alas, we had our trusty tour guide in the vehicle with us so there were no incidents to speak of.

This was orangutang highway.  I was somewhat amazed by it much like I was amazed at some of the wiring on the outsides of buildings in China, albeit, for differing reasons.  This was to keep the orangutangs in and crazy people out.  Looks like it should be discouraging enough for either of those two parties to help them tow the proverbial line during weaker moments.

Robby rocking some shades while showing off the guns.

Liena and Caleb enjoying a short break from the action with some drinks.

Caleb captured during an inquisitive moment!

That's Marylynn up front facing the kids.  She had a teaching moment and obviously was doing well by the crowd she's attracting.  What is she teaching about?  Well, if you look closely to her right, there's what appears to be a large acrylic tube with stones in it.  Only those aren't stones.  They're elephant poops.

Caleb, Robby and Liena on a bird who looks worried enough.  Ethan was taken by Grandpa to attend some important bidness, which is why he is missing from this photo.

This was one of my favorite animals.  It's a maned wolf and while it looks a little more "fox'ish" than say a wolf might, it drew quite the crowd. This was the best picture I got of the thing but there's a better picture here, with cubs.

Robby trying to figure out what it would be like to be eaten by a T-Rex.  I gave him my typical answer for when he's curious about how bad it would hurt, which is, "It'd hurt real bad, but only for a second!"

Towards the end of our day, the kids and Marylynn rode the carousel.  I can only watch for a short time before the rotation of it starts making me ill.  Age, I tells ya. AGE!!

Hippie boy enjoying the same.

Look at little Ethan there!  Grandpa took a break in E's stroller prior to us stopping for Grandpa to buy ice cream for all of the kids.

So that about wraps up that day.  A great day was had and it kind of sucked to say goodbye to G'ma & G'pa after only several hours.

Until next time!

Vacation - Post #10, The National Mall

So we pick up our story on what we assumed was going to be an easy walk from Arlington National Cemetary to the Lincoln Monument...  foolish Iowans.

Reminds me of the time in Las Vegas when Aunt Molly and Dear ol' Dad were going to walk from the Circus Circus hotel over to whatever hotel had the Star Trek ride/exhibit/whatever it was (possibly called The Star Trek Experience, if memory serves).  We lit out shortly after lunch time in a baking sun and arrived after walking "a couple of blocks" nearly an hour later.  

It's Vegas.  

It's HOT!!  

Things are larger than they seem when your most common point of reference is a city block in Iowa.

And this is where our story picks up...  This pic was taken shortly before a fantastic black fella driving a bus pulled up beside of us and told us to get in.  It was a completely empty bus and he was returning to the Lincoln Monument after driving some fine folks from that side of the Potomac to Arlington.  We got on the bus with him and he gave us a personal little tour with his microphone as he drove. No charge. He just noticed some folks walking with kids and having driven that route several thousand times, realized how naive we were as parents trying to make the walk, and decided to pick us up.  We tipped him well.  He is/was a fine man who will be remembered by the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit! God Bless you, bus driver man!!  Notice the Lincoln Monument up ahead in the distance behind the street lamp poles!  We had a ways to go yet!

And so after getting dropped off by the fantastic bus driver, we had a snack/drink at a little stand and headed off walking again.  We had arrived at the Lincoln Monument in relatively good shape.  Again, the sheer size of things does not come into focus until you're upon them.

This place is huge!  That's Momma and China boy off to the bottom left of the photo.  Where's Robby?  Probably trailing behind but I'm sure he was within a safe distance...

Caleb likes himself some Abe!  Seriously, he pointed out every A.L. we saw on this trip and to a certain extent, still does!  I think the scaffold was due to the final clean-up of the mentally ill lady who spread the green paint across things in a less than stellar moment for her.

The speech, carved in marble.  Robby delivered it for me and whoever else was standing near.

Momma and the critters down front of the monument.

Daddy and the critters in roughly the same spot, albeit looking the other direction.

Caleb and Robby at the spot where Martin Luther King delivered the amazing & famous, and amazingly famous "I have a dream" speech".  Prez Obama was to be in this spot within a couple of weeks of our visit speaking from this very spot.

At the edge of the reflecting pool.

This is the 3 Soldiers statue commemorating the Vietnam War.

The memorial wall with the service men and womens names in it.  I liked this photo although it may not represent much to anybody who wasn't there.

This is Constitution Gardens Pond.

The main entrance into the WWII Memorial.

Looking up from roughly that same spot.

This is what's inside the WWII memorial.  All 50 states are represented around the outside of the this area and it's really much cooler than our meager little photos show.

Truly, this day included our visit to the front fence of the White House, the Washington Monument and much other stuff that is not document here as I sort of covered it in the other posts of Downtown DC.

That's partly because of having photos from 3 cameras and the fact that we threw all of those photos together into one folder and also due to the fact that I did not blog as it was happening and I have a really, really, REALLY bad memory.

Superbowl Sunday!

We are not a "house divided"!

If there are any questions about where our allegiance lies, see below!

GO BRONCOS!!!