Mayhem Mania

Day 20 of 30 Days of Mayhem: Papa and Cici's House

Today has been a pretty low key day. There was nowhere we had to be, no time we had to be anywhere, nowhere we had to drive, it was awesome!

We could not go to the normal breakfast spot because it is closed the week of Independence Day every year.

After breakfast we came home and everyone vegged. My kids didn't want to talk to anyone, play with anyone, they just wanted to spread out and be.

I caught up on a couple of blogs since I am woefully behind. Mom mentioned that today was Quilt Bee day. So I wrapped up a post and found my embroidery bag and she and I headed out to Bee.

After Bee we hit Costco for a few things we need for our trip to the beach and gas. You have to get gas if you go to Costco. The NC Costco does not have the Artichoke Jalapeno dip that our Texas one does. This made me very sad. I do not like the Artichoke Spinach dip, but the Artichoke Jalapeno is the bomb! I guess we are not supposed to have it for happy hour at the beach.

When we got home, I'm not sure anyone had moved from when we left. They were all still getting their veg on.

After dinner we came home and had some outside time. Eliza Claire practiced pitching, Ruby gymnasticked, Charlotte Hamiltoned, Rehm sat, Zander played catch, the adults watched.

Zander has coined a new nick name for Charlotte that is just plain awesome - Char Char Binks, Ms. Binks, or just plain Binks. Have I told you about Charlotte's other nick name she earned on this trip? Ruby gave her this one, it is Mothership. It is for when she is bossing people around. Again, I love it.

At some point today, Charlotte was telling Cici and Aunt Sherri about DC and seeing the White House. She was telling them all about seeing the President's moped. She talked about all of the black vehicles surrounding him and driving by and how the it was all around the President's moped. Both were surprised that the President had a moped and that they had never heard about it before. Then they realized that Charlotte had the wrong term and was talking about the motorcade! When Cici came home from the grocery store tonight she told Charlotte she saw a motorcade while she was there.

There was a very rousing game of dominoes tonight. Oh my word! It was LOUD! I'm not sure who won, but I know they had lots of fun. At one point Charlotte said she had a "slimmer of hope" at winning. I asked if she meant "glimmer," she informed me "no, she meant slimmer because it was even smaller than a glimmer."

Goodnight,
Jenn

Day 17 of 30 Days of Mayhem: Washington DC Again

Day Two in DC. We got a much earlier start today. Can I just say Jennifer and Bill are spoiling us with some good food! It has been fabulous and breakfast this morning did not disappoint.

Again we headed into DC and parked in a garage. Today we were meeting Cathi, Griffin and Marc as well as Linda and her girls.

We started out at the American History Museum. We did not see anywhere near all of this museum and I really enjoyed it. The First Lady and Presidential exhibits were my favorite. The interesting fact I noticed here is that while Barack Obama is our 44th president we have only had 43 actual presidents. This is because Grover Cleveland served non-consecutive terms and counts as the 22nd and 24th president, but since he is only one person the numbers are off in my opinion.

After the American History Museum we headed to the monuments.

Our first stop was the Washington Monument. We did not get tickets to go up in it so we enjoyed it from its base.

Next up was the World War II Memorial. It was really pretty. It may have been my favorite of the day.

Then we walked over to the Jefferson and Vietnam Memorials. By this point I was tired of walking.

All of the Canadian geese were hanging out on the grass. One of them decided they needed to be in the pond and then they all went. It was fun to watch.

I waited in the shade while the rest of the family checked out the Jefferson Memorial. I decided seeing it from a distance.

Linda and her oldest Brenna caught up with us between the Jefferson and the Vietnam memorials. We were so happy to get to spend more time with them. It was nice of the locals to come play tourist with us! I always love getting to spend time with Linda. It was lovely to get to meet her girls finally. I feel like I know them as I've known Linda since Brenna was a baby.

Rehm in front of the Federal Reserve

We got to the back of the White House and were far away. Linda suggested we walk around to the front for a closer view. Suddenly there was a bicycle cop in front of us telling us we had to turn around and go back the other direction that we could not go the way we were trying to, even though it was not blocked off. Someone, probably Linda, asked why but the cop would not say anything.

We walked back to the back of the White House, far, far away from the building just in time to see the presidential motorcade drive by and into the back drive of the White House. We proceeded to watch everyone disembark and disappear into the White House.

That face!

Rehm, Brenna, Ruby, Eliza Claire, Charlotte, and Griffin

At that point, we called it a day. Linda and Brenna headed home and we headed back to Jennifer and Bill's with Marc, Griffin and Cathi for dinner.

Bill is a yo yo fan. He showed my kids all kinds of cool tricks and got them interested in learning to do more than just make a yo yo go up and down. I have now ordered a couple of decent yo yo's for them to practice with. They should arrive while we are at my parents' house.

Jenn

Day 15 of 30 Days of Mayhem: New York City to Washington DC via Philadelphia

Today was mostly a travel day. We left Staten Island around 11:00 am, which was our estimated departure time. Score one for the Maniacs!

Ruby made this sign up list for doing stuff in NYC and taped it up.

New Jersey coming out of NYC - Not very pretty

Our destination for the day is the suburbs of DC where we will be staying with Michael's cousin Jennifer and her family. I always feel bad when my family is going to visit another family. I think, they can't really know what they have agreed to and they are going to regret saying yes to having us visit.

We decided to stop in Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell on our way. It seemed fitting after seeing the Statue of Liberty and with heading to DC for several days.

Driving into Philly

We sat in the parking garage and had lunch. It was a yummy pasta salad with mini pepperoni, cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. It would have had sun dried tomatoes but our little grocery store on Staten Island didn't have them.

The museum at the Liberty Bell was not huge but the kids had fun and honestly we were not trying to spend a lot of time in Philly.

Rehm's answer to the above question is on the blue post it

Uncracked side of the bell.

Did you know that the big crack came from trying to repair the smaller crack.

Playing dress up at the Liberty Bell Museum

The kids talked us into buying swizzle sticks. Michael commented on me sitting with the stick in my mouth this way. I decided I should share a picture.

On the way out of Philly we stopped and bought two cheesesteaks to compare. Philly likes to put "whiz" on their cheese steaks instead of sliced cheese. Michael dropped us off. Charlotte went to Pat's and I crossed the street to Geno's. We passed them both around the van and let everyone have some of both to see which they liked better. Charlotte did not get onions on the Pat's one so it was not a completely fair comparison. I think most of us liked Geno's but I think Ruby was a Pat's girl. That is not surprising since she does not like onions. When I passed back the Geno's one I warned Rehm it had onions on it. He was thrilled. He said, "sauteed onions make everything better!" Who is this child? And what did he do with my super picky eater? Oh, and he liked cheese steak! He doesn't like red meat and he thought it was awesome and was arguing to make sure he got his share.