Weekend in DC

Every once in a while it's exciting to be completely floored by the power of nature. It's not as nice when your lovely plans get wrecked by 21 inches of snow. Our weekend in Washington DC didn't go as planned. The Kennedy Center closed, so our Handel's Messiah performance was cancelled. I was beginning to wish I had some food storage in the car, because it was difficult to find an open restaurant. We trudged through the snow down the middle of "K" street in Georgetown, (without boots) to find an open Papa John's Pizza. The place was hopping. On our walk back some guy offered us $500 for our pizza. (I'm pretty sure he was joking.) During the heaviest of the snow (and prior to check-in time at our hotel) we decided to try to take refuge at the Smithsonian. That was closed. I couldn't recognize where we were down on the mall because of poor visibility. (That, and the cross country skiiers threw me off) I'm not sure how many red lights we drove through unaware. We ended up at the Lincoln Memorial. It was an odd experience. I'm used to visiting that place in the oppressive heat of summer in shoulder to shoulder crowds. This time it was empty. We couldn't see out as far as the reflecting pool. Despite the unfortunate change in plans, I still had a nice time with my sweetheart.

Dance Party

While I was addressing Christmas cards, Luca went upstairs and got dressed like this. Then he brought me my camera and said that I should take pictures of the show. Add a little C&C Music Factory, and it was a dance party. Luca has some moves!

Decorating

It was snowing outside. We had christmas music playing...sounds beautiful, right?
I decorated the christmas tree while the boys mostly just wrestled and broke ornaments. Oh well. A good time was had by all.

Family Photo

A good friend of ours photographed our family today. We haven't had a family photo done since before James was born. I'm so excited to see how they all turned out. This is one she took on my camera.

Luca was very proud of his sharp new suit at church this morning. Thanks Mom-mom!

ARRRGH!

Luca, just like his dad, is disgusted by pumpkin innards.

pink flamingos

Since we're posting pictures of grazing fauna, here's another addition. My office is about a block from city hall - when I was passing, I caught these critters on the lawn. Only in baltimore, Hon.

Deer Season

Here is why it is so difficult for us to garden. This is at 8:30 in the morning. They are so bold! Luca even knocked on the window and they barely looked up. Finally I went out and chased them away from my next door neighbor's mums. I didn't think deer even liked mums. I do know one thing though, James really liked all the "horses" on our front lawn!

The B & O is seriously cool!

We went to the B & O railroad museum as part of Luca's "pre-school" today. I have this really romantic notion of train travel, and I loved standing beside the huge locomotives. It was so neat!

This picture is inside the roundhouse. While we were there they were moving a new engine into its place in the exhibit. The floor spins without a motor or any electricity! In the left side of this photo is a man down in a hole. He is walking down there and pushing the whole platform in a circle! It is amazing that one man can move an enormous locomotive, as long as the engine is perfectly balanced on the platform.

Flowers and Civil War battlefields

This is one of our dahlia plants. The blossoms are as big as James' head.

The boys and I drove to Gettysburg yesterday to meet up with Mom-mom for a bit of shopping, some battlefield-sight-seeing and a picnic. Here are some pictures from "Devil's Den". The boys loved climbing on the rocks. The park is such a neat place. The boys love it, mostly because of all the open space to run and stuff to climb on. Each time I go, I try to learn at least one new fact. Devil's Den was a union held position, by troops from Orange County New York. It was heavily contested on the second day of fighting and did change hands as the Union troops were driven back. I have this very youthful idea that bad and scarry things happen at night in the dark, but that's obviously not true. It's just hard to imagine something so scarry in a beautiful place on a sunny summer day. I'm grateful to be able to visit and to enjoy the outdoors, my mom, my boys, and a little bit of history too! Thanks Mom-mom!

joanie's favorite pizza

Couldn't wait for the guys to remove the wheelbarrow from the group study room to show these before and after pictures. Once they put down the carpet, you'll never know this used to be a scary basement. I have some great stories from this job. Not quite on par with the cement truck submerged in 200 yards of concrete story, but still good. Of all my recent projects, this one had the shortest flight and the best pizza. ("Could I order a large pizza with three toppings. And could you make all three of the toppings onion")

Art Show

We like to have art shows in our house. Luca tapes his pieces to the wall and I buy my favorites with pennies. Last night Jer joined in. He sketched this awesome picture of Luca! How many pennies would you give him for that one? I have to let you all know what a talented and amazing guy he is:) Also, we've finally gone digital with some of our wedding pics.

AN ARCHITECT'S HAIKU

License exam news just in:
adding meaningless letters after my name;
please don't sue me now

Special Treat

Shaving cream clouds on the kitchen table. Good times. I bribe my boys (Luca mostly since James only responds to basic commands) with this activity. If they're really good on a car or shopping trip we might get to make a mess when we get home! I love James' eyes in the next picture. It's like he's looking to Luca to ask, "Is she really letting us do this?"


Here is my first attempt at a fondant covered cake. I made my own fondant. I'd really like to get better at cake decorating. I didn't have much trouble with the fondant, but the cake itself was kind of lumpy so that made the covering not look as nice. It was fun though. I'm going to keep practicing. (I have to add that I do not own a single cake decorating tool at the moment.)



Here are some of this year's Dahlias.
This is an older pic of Luca and Sydney at the zoo. They loved climbing in this turtle shell. It was such a fun day!
4th of July.

A Late Summer Haiku

Tree felling hail and wind.
James' worried eyes as Luca wails, "No!"
"We loved our red racer"

A LIGER

Luca on a tiger at the syracuse zoo

Key Largo, Montego, Baby why don't we go?

To Jamaica or the Florida Keys???


We had a fantastic trip. These pics are from Bahia Honda State Park on Big Pine Key.

This is mom-mom, Luca, Jer, and James. The sand was so soft and white. The water was a perfect temperature and so clean!

This is sunset in Key Largo. It looked like Jer was having a tranquil moment till James came up and dumped a hand full of sand on his shorts.

We went to a butterfly conservatory. It was incredible. Thousands of them were flying all around us. This picture is actually a moth. It was much easier to photograph because it was sleeping. Moths are nocturnal.

Here is a pic of some of our recently moved away friends. We miss you guys!

Graduation!

No, Luca did not graduate. He just snagged Em's cap. The Miceli twins made it through! I can't imagine what Mom-mom and Pap-pap will occupy themselves with when the kids leave for college.
Pap-pap will probably go the gym for a few more hours a week till he looks like Mr. Incredible. Maybe he will run another marathon. Who knows.
Mom-mom will have several more hours a day to tackle all kinds of projects. Maybe she will discover her own new mathmatical theory, maybe she'll teach so many SAT classes that the average score of cumberland county will increase by so much that they'll have to start testing the water. Or maybe she'll just figure out what happened to the mates of all those orphaned socks hanging on the line. Oh! The great mysteries of Life!

James slept through the formal family photo time. You always let sleeping babies lie. Too bad if when we look back in 10 years we can't remember if he was born yet.

Here are the five originals!

The men.