Botanical Gardens

Today after church we went to Norfolk Botanical Gardens. My parents have gotten a year membership, so hopefully this will be the first of many trips this year. In Luba's class at school they have been watching the 'Eagle Cam' all year, watching the baby eaglets grow up so she was excited to see them in person.

This is a picture looking up at the big nest, there is an eaglet in the left side of the nest, the father is on a branch to the far left. He later flew away in search of dinner.

Looking at the nest.

There is a special kids section at the garden. When Kristin saw the water pump she said, "Oh,

this is how we had to get water in Ukraine!"

Enjoying the day.

Some beautiful roses.

Other flowers and a turtle.

After looking in the gardens we walked to the top of the grass hill to over look the airport. Michael and Luba enjoyed running around more. By the time we got home everyone was very tired.

Mom x3

Dad's 75th Birthday

Today we celebrated my dad's 75th birthday. His birthday isn't until June 3rd, but we will have friends in town. This morning I had errands to run and was able to find umbrellas for our patio furniture which we just had delivered. Woo Hoo, I was so excited since we had gone to 3 stores yesterday without success!

I made deviled eggs and how appropriate a twin! My dad is a twin. I had never seen that before.

John fired up the grill, below are the men conversing before the meal, John, Brian, (behind the post), and my dad. Nathaniel came after work.

Brian captured a lizard and Michael wanted his picture taken with it. I hope it didn't touch his mouth, yuck!

Kristina enjoyed the hammock before dinner.

Having a relaxing meal.

The birthday boy!!

Finally able to sit down and enjoy cake and ice cream.

Mom x3

Memorial Day

What would be a more fitting place to be on Memorial Day than Arlington Cemetery? Just seeing all the tombstone streching as far as you could see is very moving.

We started the day out with a lesure breakfast buffet. Then we packed up the truck and got on the metro for a trip to Arlington. Just as we were coming up the escalator from the metro, Obama's motorcade was going past. He had just layed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown. Hey, you don't see that everyday. See pix below.

This section was the more recent deaths with many being from Iraq. This man in the orange shirt just keep sitting there staring at the stone. We assumed it was his son's grave, very sad.

My Grandfather, my dad's dad, fought in WW I, yes that is a ONE.

Tomb of the Unknown and changing of the Guard.

JFK

Pix of us on the last metro ride.

We headed home by 4, stopping for dinner at Chik-fi-la. After dropping Alli and Brian off we made it home by 8:30. It was a great trip, but a lot of walking, our next vacation will be be more relaxing.

Mom x3

National Zoo and Memorials

Today we got up and enjoyed a leisurly breakfast at the buffet. The kids enjoyed getting as much of whatever they wanted. Then we took a train to the National Zoo. We still had to walk at least half a mile to get to the zoo from the Metro station. The weather was great though, low 80's. Everyone had a great time walking around. It rained just a little bit for about 20 minutes.

The cheetah was too interested in the worker about to come out of the door, it may have been close to lunch time.

This panda was eating ice.

Kids with a panda eating bambo in the background.

tiger

baby gorilla born 2/09, tarantula

komoto dragon


octopus, frog

We walked around the zoo until about 3:30 PM. We did miss the 'small mammals', we just ran out of time and we were tired.

Then we took the metro to The Mall to see different Monuments/Memorials, above is a picture of the escalator going down. I couldn't tell you how long it was, but it took 2 minutes and 18 seconds to get to the bottom! It's WAY underground.

It was so great to be in Washington on Memorial Day weekend because there were so many people celebrating America and all of the light posts had American flags. It really made you feel patriotic. We had already walked so much at the zoo, but we still had to walk a distance from the metro station to the other end of 'The Mall' where 'The Wall' and the Lincoln Memorial are.

Luba wanted to see 'The Wall' since her teacher had read the class a book about it.

Pictures of the kids while we rested for a short period of time before walking the short distance to the Lincoln Memorial.

I asked Luba if she thought it was a very high ceiling. She looked up and said, "You could put a giraffe in here!"

The closest metro station was at Arlington so we had to walk across a HUGE bridge to get there. I bet we walked 4-5 miles today. Also this weekend in DC was Thunder Roll, where many Harley owner met, so every where we looked there were motorcycles. Michael was trying to count them all but couldn't.

We took the metro to Pentagon City Mall to eat dinner in the food court which we thought was great idea until we got there. It was 6:15 on a Sunday and the mall and food court closed at 6. :(

We then walked over to Pentagon Row which is like Town Center with many shops and restaurants and ate at Champps Grill and followed that with ice cream from Maggie Moos, which is like Cold Stone.

Tired waiting for the metro.

We made it back to the hotel by 9 PM and ate some popcorn while watching TV. The kids will be exhausted in school next week. Oh well, it's not everyday we do this.

Mom x3