Vacation 2013 - Post #7, Downtown DC, the 2nd time.

The previous post dealt with our first visit to downtown, which we did under the close supervision of our host family/tour guide/slapper-arounder Marylynn. 

That was so the chaos unit could get schooled on all things appropriate such as how to get downtown, and how to navigate when you're down there. So the first post was mainly photos about the architecture and such of the D.C. area, this is the other post of the architecture of the D.C. area and I'm sure if we'd had more time in the area, I'd do about 8 more posts about buildings! 

I do not apologize...  I was fascinated with the buildings!

There will be more posts that overlap these because of our walk thru the mall with the monuments, the Arlington Cemetary, and what not.

Until we get there, try to enjoy the same pictures that I do.

This was on our walk to find the White House where President Obama has the staff brew the first beer at that location: Ale To The Chief.  I will not lie.  I am not fond of most of the carryings-on of our current commander in chief, but I do admire the fact that he seems to recognize a good beer when he sees one.  Sadly, I did not run across one of the White House ales in our time out there, but I would have gladly enjoyed one with the Big O over a discussion about the big 3: football, religion and politics.

I apologize in advance for forgetting what all of these buildings represent, but this was a medical building with the inscription (under the big red +)  "In Memory Of The Heroic Women Of The Civil War".

What building is this?  I dunno...  I just liked it.

OOOoooh...  Oooooh!!!  I believe it is the museum of the...  place that has stuff that museums have...  I'm just kidding, it's the Corcoran Gallery Of Art.  We didn't go in.  I'm not kidding when I say that I had no idea what it was, but that I just looked it up.

This is the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.  It was IMMENSE!!  There's no way to take a photo of it as it's just simply too big to be had by a regular camera.  If you were to look this up on Google/Bing maps, it's the building immediately West of the White House which sort of looks like a square'ish figure 8.

To fine young lads who have made their way all the way from Iowa (and China) to stand at the front steps of the White House.  Can you see Obama back there?!?  He's in the window just to the right of the 7th iron rail in the fence... if you're counting from the left.  Or was it the right?  Get it?  Left, or the right?  Oh man, I crack myself up!!! 

If you do a 180 from where the photo immediately above this was taken, you see this.  It's the Washington monument of course.  You'll see a few photos from now why it looks a bit different from what you're used to.

This is a VERY SMALL portion of the building that is the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The Washington Monument up close and as personal as they would allow at this time.  That is some fantastic scaffolding they had built and I would have been honored to help set it up!!

This was outside the building where Momma misplace her purse, albeit temporarily.  It was hot as hades out there and really cold inside the air conditioned book/memorabilia store.   I went back outside because it was small and crowded in there, as well as cold and I knew that we had a long walk ahead of us yet.  These fellas rode past shortly after I went back outside.

This is the U.S. Department Of Agriculture where our own Tom Vilsack went to put his wares on display.  You can take that however you want... 

I don't remember what this is, but I seem to think it was taken on our walk to retrace steps as we went to look for lost belongings.  It was a nice photo of what I think was the...  oh, Freer Gallery Of Art, where Robby used ever bathroom in the place.  Twice.

And that about does it!  It was a full day. By the time the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit had figured out the trains, read maps, walked forever, and so on, it was time to go back to the Gonsalves to regroup for another adventure.

Vacation 2013 - Post #6, Downtown DC, the 1st time.

After our train ride to downtown, we had a bit of a walk to get to the museums, which will be covered in future posts.

The walk was cool.  Marylynn was well researched and also knew that Robby is a bit of a history buff, so she had us get off of the train where our walk would take us by a bit of history.  We'll come to that after a few photos.

I have no idea what the order of these should be anymore so they're kinda random.

Hard to spot it but straight down that road is the Capitol building.  I didn't have much time to fire off a photo, so I was a little off center when I realized it was down the road.

Don't know what this building is, but it was enormous and I like pillars.

I've also come to realize after seeing pictures from China and Washington D.C., that I not only like to photograph buildings with pillars, but I'm quite fond of arches as well.  This one was cool.

Ah, the bit of history that Marylynn had planned for us to walk by.  Fords Theatre where President Abraham Lincoln was shot.  They hauled him out of there and across the street where we're standing to take this photo...

Into this building where he eventually died from his wounds.

Obviously, this is a close-up of the sign immediately above Robby's head in the above photo.

Here's the museum that we toured.  There are roughly 42 bathrooms throughout this place and I think Robby used every one of them... twice!  He'll thank me for that comment someday...  or not.

This is one of the Smithsonian buildings but I couldn't tell you which one.  We are standing on the steps outside of one of the museums that we had walked thru and looking out across the mall.

And here it is from the base of the building!  I don't know what else to say, but I do have a shot of that archway that you can see at the bottom left.

The Mobile Chaos Unit in front of the Capitol.  I like this picture for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that Caleb had to pee, REALLY BAD, and you can see the obvious anguish on his little Chinese face!

Again, not sure what the building is, but it was enormous as well!

I'm going off memory here, so I'm most likely horribly wrong, but I think this may be the Bill Clinton whatever building.  All I know is that it had pillars and arches!

To put the size of the building in perspective, the tiny little people up there by the arches are, from left to right, Robby, Liena, Caleb and Ethan in the stroller, Marylynn, and Momma.

No pillars on this one, but arches with scaffolding!  mmmmmm... construction sites...

That's about all for that post.  Nothing too exciting to look at, unless you were there.  

I kinda wish we would have had a week to just spend in the D.C. area proper.  So much that we just saw, without doing.  I guess that gives us a fantastic reason to go back someday!

Vacation 2013 - Post #5, At The Gonsalves

So after spending the better part of the day at Gettysburg and driving on to Maryland and the Catoctin Mountain park, we finally arrived at our friends house.

It seems odd that I'm posting some photos from somebody else's house (hopefully they don't mind) but there's some good photos there and for whatever reason, Caleb got the giggles this morning looking at them.  They don't appear to be funny to me, but kids are kids...  what can you say?

This was shortly after we had first arrived.  It didn't take long for the kids to "catch-up" and get over any shy tendencies that time may have borne.

Robby is attempting to do his homework that he had to have done by the end of summer while Caleb "helps" and I'm sure, makes things easier for Rob.  Robby looks delighted, does he not!?

That's Ethan in the Superman pj's.  He and Caleb hit it off pretty good although Caleb declares no memory of him from China.  That's really not surprising since both boys were probably in a bit of distress at that point.  Caleb and Ethan share "Got'cha Day" dates!

And here is the lad in all of his glory.  I was happy to get to spend more time with their family because I eventually got to the point with Lil' E where he sat on my lap for the train ride into DC proper where we teased each other and giggled relentlessly.

This is how we spent each early morning;  drinking Steve's wonderful coffee!  He makes coffee that is nearly perfect for how I like mine.  I miss it...

This photo has been on here before, but it's worth repeating when you consider how terrified Caleb was of any and all animals when we brought him to America.  It took him nearly 3 days to warm up to sweet Nala, but he got there!  I also miss taking Nala on her afternoon walks.

Getting Ready For Sochi, 2014!!

What's a boy to do?  It's a 'warm' winters day, roughly 45 degrees out, you've been given a new snowboard and your arm is well healed up from a football wound suffered earlier this Fall.

A boy snowboards, that's what he does.

Well tries anyway.  He only went down the hill about 15 times total and was markedly better after several runs.  Too much snow has melted now for redos, although we did get another 1 - 1.5 inches this morning. 

Ready for Sochi?  Not yet, but be warned world, he's on his way!

Early run after a couple of trials on the "bunny hill" in the front yard.

Doing better...

...and he's down!

Down again!  This was my favorite wipe-out. The front of the board kind of dug in so he went over that way.  Very exciting!

And, sad small Chinese boy wishing he could get a run at it.  Not til he's closer to the 12 week mark after his surgery.  Hopefully we'll still have some good snow around Valentines day and the boy can tear it up.

Better Late Than Never... Grandparents Day

I either wasn't aware that these photos existed, or more possibly, FORGOT that they existed. 

Either way, they're good and I thought I would share them.

On the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving, Four Mile Elementary has Grandparents Day for the kindergartners. 

Grandma and Grandpa went this year with Caleb and it appears that a splendid time was had by all.
 

Calebber with his cookie/reeses peanut butter cup/rolo/m&m pilgrim hats.

And a proud Calebber with his G'ma & G'pa.

Vacation 2013 - Post #4, Catoctin Mountain Park

On our last stop before entering Gaithersburg, Maryland and seeing our friends that we met in China, the Gonsalves, we stopped off for a brief visit/hike at Catoctin Mountain Park.  I'm not exactly sure in what area we hiked, but I believe we were within a mile of Camp David.

The hike was not too crazy far and not too crazy steep and simply, not too crazy.  Which is a good thing when you've been in a vehicle for a long time.  A nice walk over mildly hilly terrain is a perfect break and quite frankly, the different smells of the forests are interesting.  This place, while not having a strong aroma, was noticeably different smelling than say, Great River Bluffs State Park in Minnesota which is different than the Great Smokey Mountains and so on.

Why do I remember the smells of these various places?  I don't know for sure, but the first place that struck me as different "smelling" was up in Northern Minnesota when Robby was just a little squirt and we spent a week at Loons Echo cabins (I think) with Grandma & Grandpa.  I recall riding one of the bicycles out to a helicopter clearing (in the event of forest fires) and just sitting on a big boulder thinking that I couldn't hear anything other than nature, and that is when the smell hit me.  It was different than other places I had been...

Anyway...

So we stopped and went for a short hike.  It would have been cool to kick off the shoes and socks to go climbing, but this day was not meant for that type of exploration.

On to the photographic evidence of our visit:

This is from the main look-out platform once you get to the end of the trail.  There were signs to not leave the path, but obviously most of the folks did not adhere to the posted rules.  I can see why. It was quite inviting to go for a wade and a climb.

From roughly the same vantage point but I'm trying to show how far up people hiked (crawled) from where we were at.  Squint real hard... they're up there!

A slightly wider vantage point of the braver (crazier) folks.

This was a cool outcropping of rocks that the photo does not do justice too.

Caleb took a picture of Mom and Dad on the hike back to the car.  I need to go on a diet...

And so, with this post, nearly 6 months after it occurred in real life, I believe I have the first day of our vacation documented!!  Only about 7 or 8 more to go...

It's Christmas Time In The City...

Christmas has come another year!

Prior to breakfast, we opened our stockings with much delight and joyous shrieking.  The boys were clamoring for opening ALL the presents right away and were even so bold in their efforts to declare that the were not hungry.  Which is when Mom and Dad knew it was nothing but a concerted effort of the two to spread bovine excrement in the hopes we would fall for their nonsense.

We didn't.

Momma with Robby and Caleb prior to getting started.  What did I ever do to deserve such a beautiful family?

Caleb started and when he pulled out that big candy cane full of M & M's, he said somewhat sadly, "I can't eat thum. Too hard."   He's of course referring to his healing mouth from his latest surgery.  He can and has eaten them!

Hippie boy Rob when he pulled new football gloves out of his stocking.  Those are new swimming "jammers" by his right knee.  The book is another in a great series of books called Who Was ------?  This particular book is about Ronnie Reagan.

After stockings we had breakfast and then headed in to open presents.  But before we can do that, we read the Christmas story in the Bible in the hopes that both boys grow up with a keen sense of understanding and respect for why we REALLY celebrate this day.  This year Momma started reading with the boys at the beginning of December out of the kids Bible where each chapter is an Old Testament story that has God promising a savior, rescuer.  Then when you read the Christmas story, it ties it all together.  Cool concept and a great idea for kids to grasp the bigger picture of The Word.

Mom opening her gift from us silly boys.  It's a coffee mug with a photo of the lads on it holding a sign saying, "We LOVE mom...   and we really like coffee!" and two bags of coffee beans.

And daddy opening his gift, a set of six different styles of beer glasses.  I've tried two of them so far and think that they are wonderful!

Calebber McCheese with another lego set.  Caleb likes to build legos and then never play with them again. Robby doesn't like to build legos, but will play with them a LOT.

The boys with their remote control race cars!

Later on, G'ma & G'pa came down and we did another round of opening gifts.  G'pa's is that big ol' box in front of them (in case you couldn't see it, and G'ma's is that tiny little box in her hand.

The boys help G'pa open his, since they helped daddy wrap it and use up a lot of duct tape.

It's an Epiphone acoustic guitar!  Woooo-hoooo!!!  Daddy will be showing G'pa some basic stuff to get him started on this thing.  It's never too late!

Hippie boy scores yet another jersey.  This time of the inimitable Peyton Manning!

G'pa with a Johnny Cash reading/recording of some of his favorite Bible passages and what they mean to him.

...and hippie boy scores yet another jersey!  This time it's the daaaa-ble checker himself, Aaron Rodgers.

Caleb scores more legos.  I'm on the books to help him with that tomorrow night.

And last, the boys get cards and money from Great G'ma Pat & Arney.  Unecessary sure, but they did light up when they opened their cards.

And so it was, another Christmas come and gone.  Thankfully we were all here to enjoy another one together.  Here's hoping we have at least one more!

Don't want to get greedy...