Thanksgiving Weekend

Miriam (Nate's cousin) and Bryant and their son Calvin drove up from North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with us. We had such a fabulous time. This was our first time hosting Thanksgiving, so I was a little worried about all the new dishes I would be making. I planned well in advance, and Miriam was incredibly helpful. I couldn't have done it without her. While Miriam and I cooked the boys went to watch the planes at the airport's viewing area.

Meanwhile Miriam and I successfully prepared lots of delicious food. We were not disappointed with a single dish.

The next day we headed off to the city to see the sites.  Beckett absolutely loved riding the metro. He narrated the entire trip.

First we went to the Air and Space Museum. Then we took advantage of the beautiful day and saw the monuments and memorials.

Beckett loved the World War II Memorial. He stood between the two fountains and alternated pointed at one and then the other saying, "water, more water" over and over.

Beckett also really likes stairs, so he enjoyed the Lincoln Memorial.

We also saw the Korean and Vietnam Memorials. Then on our way tot he White House we happened upon this building:

Miriam had to get a picture because she is studying to be a pharmacist.

Calvin was a super tourist. He is such a happy baby. Nate and I were very impressed with his appetite.

Here's the whole family in front of the White House.

We posed in the same spot. (Beckett got that leaf at the pharmacy building. He carried through two metro rides, one with a line change, back to our car where he crunched it up.)

On Saturday Nate's cousin Julie came to visit. (Why didn't we take any pictures?) We had another great dinner (planned and executed by Nate) and enjoyed talking until the wee hours of the morning. 

We also went to Old Ellicott City and spent some time at the B&O Railroad Museum. 

You can sit in the caboose.

 

And ring the bell.

The station also has lots of model trains set up and the best Santa Claus any of us had ever seen. Beckett found him fascinating.

We had a great time with Miriam, Bryant, Calvin, and Julie. We are so happy to have family within driving distance and hope to see them all again very soon.

More Fall Stuff

A few weeks ago we went to Alexandria to check out Nate's old stomping grounds from 10 years ago.

We saw a fire truck in Alexandria.

We went to the George Washington Masonic Memorial. There are lots of stairs and lots of George Washingtons.

A few days later I took Beckett to Clark's Ellioak Farm. This is when I discovered that Beckett likes tractors (big surprise). In the picture below he was watching them intently.

Beckett showed off his animal husbandry skills, fostered by the Deanna Rose Farmstead, in the petting pen.

I vastly prefer the Deanna Rose Farmstead (both in terms of animals, attractions, and price), but Clark's has these cute nursery rhyme-inspired structures.  The shoe from "The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" is a slide.

Beckett loved this little train.

We took a turn around the pumpkin patch. However, it wasn't until Halloween that I would realize Beckett's intent interest in pumpkins. Seriously. We have taken several walks around the neighborhood where he stops at every house that has a pumpkin on the porch and checks it out, often saying "hiya punkin." He got two pumpkins at Nate's work's Halloween party that he carried around the entire time saying, "a punkin, another punkin." He lies those pumpkins on their sides and says, "night-night punkin." I have four little squishy pumpkins that Beckett's been taking to bed and feeding drinks.

Before we could leave Clark's I told Beckett we needed to try and get one good pumpkin shot. This is the best we could do.

 

Intellectual Recreation

Need a little more Halloween? Check out:

Creeptastic Art on Intellectual Recreation

Where I expound on the similarities between Little Red Riding Hood, Barbara Semmes's photography, and the 2004 film The Village.

Trick or Treat

Gettysburg

Last Saturday we went to Gettysburg. It's just a little over an hour from our house. It was a gorgeous and rather windy fall day. Basically it's hard to imagine Gettysburg looking better.

We skipped the 45 minute film and museum (toddler in tow) and spent all of our time driving and walking around the battlefield. Gettysburg, a turning point in the Civil War, was a three-day battle and involved lots of troop movement over an impressively large area.

We climbed this observation tower to get a view of the battleground.

It was extremely windy up top.

The surrounding farmland.

My favorite part of our trip was the little hike we did up Big Round Top, not because it had much significance to the battle, but because it was so pretty.

Our last stop of the day was Little Round Top, which unlike it's larger sister, was an extremely important location in the battle. The strategic hill was seized by the Union Troops on the second day of the battle (July 2, 1863). The view below is of the Valley of Death. The rock formations in the valley, known as Devil's Den, helped conceal Confederate snipers who kept the Union troops atop the hill under constant fire. In the open areas of the field many soldiers died in their attempt to take the hill.

A rare picture of all three of us on Little Round Top.

This final picture was taken in the cemetery, which is full of canons and monuments to the various companies.

Jill Tours Mount Vernon

My friend Jill came to visit from Arizona. You can read more about our friendship here, here, here, here, and probably some other places too.

It was great to have Jill come and stay. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't so great while she was here. One day we went to Mount Vernon. Jill's job was to learn stuff and teach me later and my job was to corral Beckett. It was a pretty efficient system.

A view of the Washington's stately abode.

Stuff Jill taught me: The walls inside the house (no pictures allowed) are painted vivid shades of green and yellow because bright colors were in fashion at the time. The Washingtons had a lot of guests stay in their house. Some they knew and some they didn't. There were no inns to speak of around so travelers frequently dropped in. Martha Washington was known for serving at ham at evening evening meal. We also saw George and Martha Washington's bedroom, where George Washington died at the age of 63. It is quite a large and comfortable looking room. After her husband's death, Martha slept in a bedroom in the attic. It was a common custom to sleep in another room during mourning, Martha, however, never returned to her bedroom. She died in the attic room three years after her husband's death.

The back of the house looks out on the Potomac.

We looked in some of the surrounding buildings were slaves and servants worked. Here's Jill looking at the various modes of transportation available.

Beckett had a couple major high points during the trip.

One was seeing this bus. The kid loves buses. He learned to say "city bus" that very day and repeated it about 137 times on the drive.

Beckett also loved the carts that the workers drove around. He called them "tractors" and tried to board this one.

The Education Center at Mount Vernon has a really fun kids room where Beckett played with a model of Mount Vernon (he knocked on all the doors, told George Washington "night, night," and drove Arthur up the stairs and on the roof). Beckett also liked the map of Mount Vernon that is inlaid in the floor of the exit. He got down on the ground and started reading all the letters, much to the amusement of all the bystanders.

Here is the tomb where George and Martha Washington were originally buried.

They now have a much more stately resting place (and the new location was chosen by George Washington before his death).

 

It had been raining off and on all day, but we had a nice long dryish spell while we looked at the house and some of the grounds. Then while we were at the tomb it started really raining. We had a pretty long walk to get back to the museum. Even with umbrellas we were more than a little wet by the time we arrived.

Rain and all, it was well worth the trip (even with the heinous D.C. traffic we had to face on the way home). Jill stayed for a couple more days. The weather was even worse the next day (thus no pictures), but we caught a short break while in the old section of Baltimore (Fell's Point) and had a few minutes to walk around and see some of the shops and old buildings.

Jill, come back soon for some more touring.