Disney World Day 2

Can you imagine that we accidentally overslept today after everything we went through yesterday?? Well, we did. However, we did feel much better getting up and out and to the park before lunchtime. Today was an awesome day! We spent it in Epcot.
Here's a picture of the boys saving the world with Kim Possible by finding clues in the United Kingdom part of Epcot.
We just happened across a line to see Tigger and Pooh. Well worth the wait! They aren't really in the boys' top 5, I'd say, but Jeremiah seemed to think they were part of the family!

Daddy with Jeremiah on the Living Seas with Nemo and friends. We had a really great time pointing out "Nemo" in the fish tanks at the end.
The boys found themselves in a bit of a sticky situation here... (I think I deserve bonus points every time I don't use the work pickle in this context. Really.)
The big ball. On the way to our bus tonight Jeremiah said, "Bye big ball. See you morrow!"
Just happened across Donald as well. We're pretty big fans. Didn't help that yesterday was actually his 75th birthday. Looks pretty good for his age, don't you think?

This one is my favorite! Learning to use chopsticks in Japan. I love it!!
No, not a perfect picture, but impressive considering I took it with Jeremiah sitting on the camera strap that was over my shoulder. Josh and Daddy watching fireworks at the end of the night.

Disney World Day 1

We had a great time surprising the boys with the news. We drew out a pirate map around the house and they discovered "clues" that lead them to this destination...

What a couple days these have been! We drove overnight down here to try and avoid some of the frustration of entertaining two small boys over a 12 1/2 hour drive. All worked relatively as planned until we stopped for breakfast.
Jeremiah has had... well, we'll say a somewhat personal problem that from my understanding is fairly normal, but evidenced itself is a not so normal way that lead us to think he should be seen by a doctor that day. Sorry, I'd be more specific but I don't want him to hate me that much when he's older. So we spent a couple hours of what should have been our first day at the Magic Kingdom in the ER. Lots of fun! Finally we came to the conclusion that it wasn't what we were fearing and we were free to go. The boys had a disrupted night of sleep, Phil didn't sleep at all and I was working on about 1 hour, I think. Fun times.
Finally we checked into our hotel early and headed for the park. Yay! The boys were thrilled! We got to ride the monorail and went in the very front with the driver so they got little "co-pilot" cards to take home with them.
After lunch we met Captain hook and Mr. Smee. Jeremiah was a bit too shy, but had planned to tell them, "I'm a pirate! Arrrrrr!"
I'm starting to like that we can take our own pictures with monuments!
Jeremiah's first time on the tea cups. He did WAY better then I expected!
Yep the pirate thing is really catching on with Jeremiah. I think we might just need to get him this hat...
After we were completely beat we decided to walk through Downtown Disney before heading back to our hotel because we thought it was on the way. Found a Ghiradelli soda fountain and had a sundae. It is a very special occasion that merits dessert before dinner! It was peanut butter and fudge with homemade fudge... Oh wow! Phil asked if it hit the spot. I told him it was more like it hit the spot with a sledge hammer!
Now we've finally had dinner and are off to bed. Hopefully Phil and I can cram two nights of sleep into one night. Tomorrow we'll be heading to the parks again to see all sorts of new and fun things!

Cool Water on a Hot Day

The beautiful part about living here is the close access to the beach. On a bit of a whim we decided last night to head out there this morning. It was a hot one today so it was nice that the boys got to splash in the cooler water for a while.

Josh's Crazy Genuis

I know, I know. Teaching a 5 year old multiplication? Questionable parenting practices at best. See, the thing is, though, that my kid is different. Well, they both are. You just notice it in Joshua because he's a little older. He isn't even 5 1/2 yet. He reads like a champ already and has been doing addition and subtraction long enough to be a little bored with it. We've touched on place value but the thing he was most interested in next was multiplication so we started to teach him a little about it tonight. He has really started to run with the idea of it, which again is just blowing us away...

In all fairness, Jeremiah is exhibiting quite a bit of an early start with letters and numbers. He's familiar with all the letters of the alphabet and can count up to 10 and is really excelling in speaking in sentences. I promise I'm not really feeding them anything special or anything. They're just special kids... and I think that is awesome! I'm expecting that at some point they'll even out with the learning curve of the other kids their age. In the mean time, it's really fun teaching them all these new things and watching their perspective of the world change as they understand it more.

Williamsburg and Washington, DC

As I wrote earlier, while my folks were here we took a drive up to DC and Williamsburg...

Joshua sucking on a licorice root. Very colonial, I think.

We did see a few things here but just didn't take very many pictures. The next day we were on our way to DC.
We booked a room at a military hotel of sorts that required us to check in on one base then drive to another. Odd, I know. Fortunately the first base we stopped at had a side entrance to Arlington National Cemetery! We were able to park and walk in without fighting for a parking space.
The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
After stopping off at the hotel we headed out to see what we could find. As it got darker, Joshua noticed the Washington Monument, but he doesn't call it that. To him it's a big giant robot. He came to this conclusion based on the evidence of the glowing red eyes that flashed at the top (you can see the two little squares in this picture).
We just happened across Ford's theater and the house where Lincoln died while trying to locate some food. Not so easy when it's 7-ish on a Sunday night, believe it or not!
On the walk back to the vehicles, we stopped by the Navy memorial because I wanted to see the Lone Sailor statue. We just happened across this little marker that we found significant. It's for the US Navy River Operations in Vietnam (ie the first Riverines ever).
This is outside the hotel we stayed at on the base. It was really pretty beautiful even though the A/C didn't work in my parents room.
We found the Smithsonians first. This is the National Air and Space Museum. Jeremiah has decided he's going to be an astronaut, just to let you all know.

This is the 4 of us in thermo imaging.
Phil and the boys staring at some guys hind end...
We've been to DC a couple times before but always seemed to miss this memorial so it was on my "must see" list this time around. I'm so glad we went!

This is from the top of the Lincoln Memorial looking at the reflecting pool and the Washington Monument.
Us and the big guy.
Bonus points to the one who figures out what Josh is trying to show you.
Next up was the Vietnam War Memorial. Can you believe it took them 10 years after the war ended for them to put this up? Memorial day was the perfect day to visit here.

After taking in a few more sites we ventured back to the Museum of Natural history for the boys. Jeremiah has a particular affection for dinosaurs so we wanted to make sure we got here for him.
DINOSAUR!!!! He said that like... I don't know... 50 million times while we walked through this area.
Fossil Lab. They labeled it for you, really.
Shark teeth. Josh needs to get a few more to catch up.
Anything you can do, I can do better, Josh.
Jeremiah the tiger. Rarrrrr....
Riding on Papa's shoulders seems to be a really exciting place to be if you're 2.
Phil keeping the trip lively. Waaaaay back there is the capital building.
I'm sure we'll visit again. We still have some other things we'd like to do in this great city. I love living near here!

A Visit with my Folks

We were fortunate enough to have my folks around for about a week until just yesterday. We had such a great time! I know these pictures make it look like my mom is the only one who visited, but I assure you it's for two very good reasons. One is most often my Mom tosses the camera at my Dad when it's just the two of them and the second is because my Dad spent most of his time working on projects around our house. Mom spent her time keeping the boys out of the way so we could finish them. This time around we installed 2 ceiling lights, a ceiling fan, a remote for the one ceiling fan we already had, fixed my piano, rewired the switches so they controlled the light fixtures as opposed to just outlets, replaced our wet bar faucet that has leaked since we moved in... and more smaller stuff. We kept him busy!

Phil and I were even able to get away overnight while they were here which hasn't happened in... well... years!


We also took a trip to Williamsburg and Washington, DC while they were here. It was the boys' first time to go. I'll post pictures from that trip later.

The boys have a really good time with my parents when we visit together.
I think our only consolation with them leaving this time was the knowledge that we'll see them again in California in September. The countdown has already begun!