Ice Cream for lunch (or, Mom is the Hero!)

So, what do you do when you've been on vacation and you come home with a broken down vehicle that is going to take a long time to fix, and you're going on week #2, and you haven't been to the grocery store in a while? You say a prayer of gratitude for the bag of frozen fruit in the freezer and the VitaMix in the cabinet and you play the part of Hero when you serve ice cream for lunch. Extra points for the cones you find in the pantry.


Alliances

This new one that is forming, while adorable, is troubling to me. Because Ben by himself? Trustworthy and reliable. Ben with Jack? Not so much. And Eli by himself? A bit of an independent streak and quite capable (a potentially dangerous combination), but mostly just as sweet as sugar. Eli with Jack? The future only knows.... We're buckling our seat belts in case it's a bumpy ride.


Babies

These little sweeties greeted us upon our return from The Hot Place (Washington, DC, not hell) (and yes, I might always call it that for the rest of my life. It was 108 and it was an outdoor vacation.). My people tried their hardest to convince me that these little balls of fur needed to live with us forever and if I thought that Chesty might have let them live in peace I might have caved. Seriously, look at these faces! Thankfully the Deadwylers caved first ("I'll just pick up one bag of cat food...") and instantly those kittens had a forever family. And Chesty would love a chance to try and "get along" with his new neighbors, but alas, their tree climbing skills are fully developed (good thing for them).






Inside the mind of Jack

Jack {bringing me the box of ice cream cones after examining it for a little while}: "Mommy, see these ice cream cones? The ones with the chocolate on them?"

Mommy: "Yes, I see them."

Jack: "Later tonight, while you are sleeping, I am going to eat them."

{The first two words that popped into my head after this announcement? Double Gates. One at his bedroom door, one at the top of the stairs. Best money we ever spent.}


We beat the heat

I know I've talked a lot about how hot it was on our trip, but you don't really know heat until you've taken a vacation that takes place primarily outside, with a lot of walking, huge crowds, and six kids to keep alive (not to mention my own self who is every bit my mothers daughter when it comes to heat). Check the weather records if you don't believe me, but today it was every bit of 107 degrees out there. Brutal. 

Patrick's graduation (which was really great, as are all Marine Corps ceremonies), was outside on the parade deck. I don't know if you know anything about parade decks, but there is no shade. There is, however, a lot of black pavement. As hot as I was in my sleeveless cotton dress guzzling the water and fanning myself incessantly, I couldn't help but feel sorry for those candidates and Marines out there in their uniforms. After a while the littlest guys and I sought the shade of a nearby building. We hadn't been there very long when a Marine approached us and said, "Ma'am, I don't mean to be a pest but I don't want you and your babies getting too hot out here. Mind if I give you a few ice packs?" I told him he could pester me with ice packs all day long. Eli took that thing out of my hands and plopped it right on his head.

After graduation, being the gluttons for punishment that we are, we decided to head back into DC to finish off our "must see" list. If we could do it all over again, we would leave the Museum of American History off of the list since it was a ridiculously crowded mass of people, sprinkled with a few thieves who were looking for an iPhone to steal. We had inched our way through exactly one exhibit before we realized Jimmy's phone had been nabbed and then spent the next hour trying to track it down. Gone. Never to be turned on again (thus making our fancy Find My Phone app useless). 

There was, however, one good thing about the crazy heat. Most people were hunkering down in the various museums, leaving the sidewalks of the city pretty open for the lunatics like us who were not about to let a little thievery ruin our day. (Basically that just means we swore off crowded buildings from then on, lest it be one of our children who disappeared into the masses instead of just a phone and we used the empty sidewalks to sell a long, hot walk to our kids). It worked, and in the end we had a great day seeing the White House up close, the Veitnam Memorial Wall, the Lincoln Memorial, the WWII Memorial and the Washington Monument. Yes, that's a lot of walking. But we took full advantage of the various sprinklers that had been set up throughout the city, which was practically an exhibit in themselves according to our kids. 

So despite record heat, a stolen phone and have I mentioned car trouble on the way home? yeah, there was that (three cheers for a handy husband who kept us rolling on!), it was a really wonderful trip. I'm already looking forward to going again in a few years (in the dead of winter) and Ben and Jack are already saving their money for their own swords. 
















A day with the Marines

Our DC trip came about when Jimmy's sister Kelly invited him to come for his nephew Patrick's Officer Candidate School graduation. With all of our American history studies over the past few years, we thought it would be the perfect time to get to see Patrick, show the kids around one of our many homes in the early days of our family, and spend some time in DC while we were just right down the road in Quantico.

Today was Family Day at OCS, where the families of the candidates would be shown around the school and given a brief overview of what their sons and daughters had accomplished. Before we went to meet up with Patrick we decided to get the kids all pumped up by visiting the Marine Corps Museum, which is right outside the gate of the base. What we didn't expect was that it would turn out to be the favorite museum for all of us. It was really quite impressive and made me remember how proud I have always been of my own Marine and how much we really did love those years of our lives.

The museum was very hands-on and interactive, which was great because so are our kids. : ) There was a booth that you entered and experienced the sound of drill instructors loudly calling you a lazy mama's boy, a pull up bar and an accurately weighted pack that you could attempt to hoist onto your back in order to see if your muscles were up to the task of boot camp, and a model of an obstacle course with a video of how the teams worked together to complete what appeared to be impossible tasks.

There were life sized dioramas depicting famous battles and wars, complete with temperature control in the rooms (cold inside the Korean War diorama, hot and steamy inside the Vietnam War one). There was a display of the actual flag that was raised at the battle of Iwo Jima, stories of countless men who won Medals of Honor for their incredibly selfless bravery, and pictures of Navy Chaplains baptizing Marines in the middle of battle.

Travis and Sam were glad they had not yet spent their souvenir money when they found a replica of Jimmy's Mameluke Sword for sale in the gift shop. Ben and Jack came away with a set of war figures from the battle of Iwo Jima, complete with a flag raising figure. They have been taking turns being the green ones, the Marines, because neither of them wants to be the Japanese (since Ben told Jack that the Marines always win).

Oh, and since I mentioned earlier that the sharing of one hotel room was going so swimmingly since everyone was so tired out from all the walking in the heat, I might as well say that I jinxed myself by thinking that. While Kelly was in Quantico for the graduation events we had the luxury of adjoining hotel rooms. Those are especially awesome with small children because it means that you can put them to bed at a decent hour and not have to lie still and quiet in the dark room while they fall asleep. So, we put the three little ones to bed and went into the adjacent room, completely assuming they would all be asleep before their sweet little heads hit their pillows. Ahem. Ben and Eli by themselves? Would have been asleep in a flash. Throw Jack into the mix and it's a full blown party. When I heard rumblings going on and poked my head into our room, Ben quickly announced that Jack was feeding Eli blueberries from our snack bag. When I asked Jack about that he staunchly denied it. Deciding to let it go with a warning and a reminder to lay down and go to sleep, I went over the Eli's bed to get him settled back in and smelled.... salt and vinegar chips on his breath. My baby had his first chips tonight and he's a fan. And I suppose Jack wasn't lying after all since he most certainly was not feeding Eli blueberries.

































DC and Dinosaurs

Forget that DC is the capitol of our great nation, home to our President, keeper of the most important documents and artifacts in our history. In Ben and Jack's minds, DC is awesome solely because of its dinosaur skeletons. From the very moment we mentioned to them that they would get to see true-to-size replicas of their beloved T-Rex, Triceratops and Stegasaurus that was all they cared about. We couldn't get into the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History fast enough for them and once we were there it was hard to tear them away. One of the first things we saw (right beneath the enormously huge T-Rex) was a sign with the question, "Who would win?" and Jimmy and I both cracked up. I think that might be the perennial question of 4-7 year old boys, at least it has been in our family!

Though the museum was crazy crowded (due to the uncharacteristically hot temperatures), it truly was amazing. We were there for four hours and left feeling like we hadn't even scratched the surface of what could be seen and watched and read. Some of our favorite exhibits were the dinosaurs (of course), the butterfly atrium, the Titanoboa giant snake (very much not my favorite. God was teaching me to die to myself and love my sons through that whole part), the Hope Diamond (they paid me back by declaring their intentions of buying it for me for my birthday), and the nature photography section that took my breath away. You know the photographs are amazing when your 7, 9 and 11 year old children want to spend their souvenir money on nature prints (sadly, we would learn, they don't sell them).

On our hike through the city and back to the Metro we walked through the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. We got to have a snack break in the shade, dip our feet in the fountain (the building in front of them in this photo is the National Archives Building) and Travis, inspired by the nature photography in the museum, even got a few fun shots of one of the many friendly squirrels running around.

Our Metro ride back was, again, crowded and hot (we felt like it wouldn't be a trip to the city without experiencing the weekday rush hour commute. Three cheers for living in a small town!), but with the knowledge that one of the Metro trains had broken down the night before leaving passengers to walk along the track to the next stop, we were just glad it was uneventful.

The plus side to all of this heat and walking? The potential for terrible nights of sleep with all eight of us in one hotel room was a non-issue. These people are sleeping like rocks!







Happy Independence Day!

This year our family (along with the rest of the country it would seem) got to have the privilege of celebrating our nations independence in Washington, DC (it was hot). Can you even imagine a more awesome (or hotter) place to be for July 4th? There was music and dancing in the streets, there were picnickers, there were ice cream trucks (because it was so hot). The fireworks were brilliant and abundant over the Washington Monument. And the Metro back to our hotel? It was crowded. And hot. Have I mentioned that? Ok, so yeah, we went to DC in July in the middle of a heat wave, but July fourth in the nations Capitol was worth it.







Ugly and Adorable

Today our friends the Meullers came over and brought something ugly and something adorable. The ugly came straight from the garden and not only made for a delicious appetizer before dinner, but also provided us some entertainment as we wagered our guesses about its weight. The winner would be the person who got closest to the weight without going over. In hindsight, we should have stipulated a reward before the official weighing since it just might have been yours truly who not only got closest, but actually estimated to the ounce. We enjoyed all 2lbs, 3 1/2 oz of this ugly tomato!


And the adorable that they brought along as well? That would be sweet Emma Jean. She has a host of admirers over here and Sam even got to perfect his baby whispering skills as she drifted off to sleep in her seat next to him. They will give her a bit more time to be a chill little sweetheart and then they're going to be expecting a little more action out of her. Just try and tell me that this isn't an adorable face!