Memorial Day Weekend

It is Monday night and Ryker is sound asleep after a busy weekend. We went to the Zoo 3 times - once for Dakini's birthday party and twice for a run. On one of the trips we stopped and threw rocks into Rock Creek for a long time. He liked to pick up the big ones and make a splash. Finally he is throwing in front instead of behind. We visited with Steve & Joanne and he jumped on the furniture, went on their swing and played the piano, very gently I might add. Let's see, we also went to brunch at Mark & Djinni's home. Great rose sangria. Ryker liked the fritata. It was Rolling Thunder in honor of Memorial Day and Ryker was excited to see all of the "acyl" (motorocycle). Today we went to Cameron Run Water Park and he went crazy: "agua, agua, agua, agua"

Myrtle Beach Boardwalk

We went to the Ripley Aquarium yesterday. It wasn't nearly as good as the Baltimore Aquarium but Ryker still enjoyed the fish a lot. He likes to mimic what the fish say: "ma ma ma." He also went on a few rides: tea cup, motorcycle and car. It was a bit hard to tear him away...

One Expensive Bicycle

We're down in Sunset Beach, NC (near the SC border) with our friend Lisa and her parents at their beach house: One Expensive Bicycle. Karen bought a bicycle despite her husband's belief that it would be a waste money, she'd never ride it, it would rust, etc. Well, she did ride it and discovered a house that she fell in love with on the beach. So, the bicycle purchase became a house purchase.

Mother's Day

Ryker let me sleep in until 8 am this morning which was heaven since it was almost 2 am by the time I got to bed last night. He was exhausted from Lucy's birthday party too and took a 3 hour nap today! I finally had to wake him up (and it wasn't easy) so we could go to Wheaton Regional Park. They have a train AND a carousel! It was a beautiful day but a very long wait for the train ride. We had a great time.

Potty Time

We've begun the potty training adventure. So far it is going well...

Silly Boy

Ryker's discovered stickers and found Keelin's butterfly sunglasses.

National Train Day

To commerate the meeting of the East and West lines, National Train Day was celebrated in several cities, including Washington. Ryker and I took the metro to Union Station where we met up with Louisa. There were model trains, toy trains, activities for kids, face painting, etc. Ryker even got a train tattoo. We then got to climb aboard a train. We only went on the sleeper, but there was an Acela, VRE, Mark, Pullman, and Obama's Inagural train among others.

Udvar-Hazy Center at the Air & Space Museum

Ugh. Rainy Sunday. Exhausted and not motivated to do anything. Keith calls: Udvar-Hazy? Sure! I've been meaning to take Ryker but it is all the way out at Dulles. I spend enough time around airports. It's a pretty cool place: a large airplane hanger and attached buildings. There is a space shuttle, the Enola Gay, Wright Brothers, Concorde, Stealth Fighter and SO many others. It's a great place because kids can run around and be noisy. Ryker loved it!

We went to the Observation Deck and watched planes land. He kept pointing to them and saying "KeeKee! DaDa!" He really misses them and was hoping they were coming on one of those planes. It made me sad. Every day he wants to talk to them and brings me the phone or goes to the computer (Skype) asking for them.

At the end, I took him to the McDonald's cafe for french fries: "mas pappas!"

Deep Sea 3D IMAX movie

Chiara and I took the kids to the Natural History museum to see an IMAX movie. Ryker kept saying "agua! agua!" He really liked it but wouldn't wear the funny glasses and didn't manage to make it through the full 40 minutes. It's okay. We still had fun. DC is such a great city to live in. There is so much to do with the kids (and for my previous "Sex and the City" adult life...).

Felipe's 2nd Birthday

My friend from Oyster Elementary, Dinora, has a son Felipe who just turned two. Her mom helped plan the party and it was great! It was in a church community room, moon bounce outside, LOTS of toys to play with, Elmo and Zoe (?) came. Ryker really liked Elmo; he blew him kisses and kept poking him and saying "Melmo, Melmo." He also enjoyed the moon bounce even when the big kids were in there. The cake? Yummy! Yummy! He passed on the chicken, beans and rice (which were delicious) and just ate cake. Maybe that explains his hyperactive behaviour this afternoon?

Harris Teeter

We went grocery shopping yesterday. Ryker likes Harris Teeter because he gets his own cart and a balloon at the end of the trip. He drove his cart like a wild man, crashing into everything, including poor Isabel. He kept wanting to add things to his cart and he had some interesting choices: linguine and tuna (fine), angel food cake, ramen noodles, sour cream (no thanks).

At the greeting cards, he grabbed all of the pink ones and kept saying "Kee! Kee!" He really misses his sister. He brings me the phone every day to call either KeeKee or DaDa. He was trying to tell Marilu (LuLu) something about them today.