Performers

In the past two weeks both Genevieve and Isadora have provided fabulous Christmastime performances. Since our move (pretty literally given that the day after they arrived she had an audition) Evie has been singing soprano with the Strathmore Children's Chorus. For the winter concert she (and the rest of the Training Chorus) sang three songs, This Little Light of Mine, First Flakes and Velvet Shoes. Her favorite, however, was the song that was sang with over 300 voices at the end of the concert - Hallelujah Chorus. We've been working a bit on another Hallelujah too, the kind written by Leonard Cohen, and once that is performance ready we'll share it :) Unfortunately cameras and recording phones were not allowed in the theater for her songs...

Izzy's performance was closer to home. For about 6 weeks now she has been taking piano lessons with Miss Emily and for the past 3 weeks they have been preparing a secret song for her to play for us.  Izzy was so into the secrecy that we all had to be downstairs whenever she had a lesson or when she practiced. She has a fantastic rapport with her teacher and is surprisingly motivated to practice (for 4-5 minutes at a time mind you). Because cameras and video recording were allowed in the theater here is the performance itself:

Out and about in November...

 This is totally unintentionally becoming a once-a-month update.  I need to get back on the regular blogging wagon for sure! Until that happens, once a month will have to do :)

For a good part of November we were all here there and everywhere. During the weekend before the election we made a Sunday afternoon trip to the zoo. Where numerous selfies and not-selfies were taken with metal animals... and a few actual animals were viewed as well.  Perhaps the best viewing of the trip were the otters, which we watched for a good 15 minutes trot from one place to another and "talk" to each other, something I don't think I ever knew before that they did.

The week of the election the girls were in Tucson with Patrick, so I went out with a few friends, one of whom lives a short walk from this view.....

Just days after everyone came back from AZ, I was on a plane to FL for the week for a conference.  The conference was a great break from DC and a nice opportunity to get to see my WRRC colleagues again (although most of them I still talk to almost weekly). At one of the evening receptions they had a person doing free caricatures so my friend Ashley and I braved the pen....

The next weekend Patrick was back off to Tucson for a few days, so we took him to the airport and then spent the day in Baltimore. A month or so ago back we had promised Genevieve that we would "one day" take her to the Ripley's Believe it or Not at the harbor. Being the elephant she is, she reminded me of this and requested that we (or rather I) make good on our promise. It was about what you would expect... probably not worth the close to $60 investment... and parts of it just downright terrified poor Izzy.  The kaleidoscope room was, however, a hit with everyone.

It was quite beautiful outside, about 60 degrees, so we figured a little ice-skating would be a good post-Ripley's experience. The rink was a bit melty, but the girls and I had a great time and went around and around for over an hour. Izzy fell quite a bit, but I was very impressed with her bravery and attitude; every time she fell she just got right back up again.

Then came Thanksgiving and the post-Thanksgiving days of sloth :) To prep for the large intake of food Vivian and Patrick ran in the Kensington Turkey Chase, a 10k tradition that they have been running (off and on) since they were kids. Then mashed potatoes and cucumber salad in hand we hopped on the metro and had Thanksgiving at Mimi's house this year.

 To relax from a busy pre-Thanksgiving few weeks Vivian and I took Genevieve out for the first time to get her nails done. I think she (mostly) enjoyed it.

What we all definitely enjoyed was getting "mood" nail polish that changes colors when you are hot or cold!! Then that night we went out for indian food with Vivian and the nephews and then they introduced us to one of their favorite Rockville places... Duck Donuts, where you assemble your own doughnut and can load it up with all sorts of interesting things (including bacon!)

The collection of personalized donuts.  Sprinkles were the common theme... fortunately bacon did not enter into the picture.

Out and about in October

We had a couple of good little trips out and about last month.  Every time we go into the city the girls go with their scooters that Mina bought them so that they can make it around easily and in style :)

 

The first trip of the month was to the Air and Space Museum. Although it was a Sunday afternoon in early October (aka not a time I thought there would be a lot of tourists) it was still really crowded. Despite the throngs of people it was still fun and the girls spent time in the kids area doing experiments and getting into planes.  We watched a demo on the space station (which was perhaps more interesting for me than them, despite the fact it was geared to kids....)

 Izzy really liked the replica of the hubble telescope...

And Evie was most excited about the Apollo 11 lander. There was so much to see we didn't even make it to the Air part.... this time around it was all about Space.

Then the next weekend we made a trek out to the Lincoln Memorial, with a scooter by the White House on the way.

 And a visit to the WWII memorial, which Patrick and I realized we had never gone to before.  I'm afraid we didn't take any pictures of the actual memorial, aside from one of us in front of the column for Arizona...

 

Part of the reason we went out to the Lincoln Memorial was because Evie was studying the Civil War in class and writing a historical fiction story as part of her assignment. So while we were at the memorial she spent some time reading Lincoln's speeches and taking notes, I don't know, however, if any of the material made it into her final story :)

 

The next week Patrick was back in Tucson and the girls were out of school for a day so they came into the city with me and then spent the day at the Alliance Francais. In order to motivate them out of the house early I restorted to a tried and true tactic... the promise of donuts:

Luckliy for me there was a Krispy Kreme right off the Dupont Circle metro stop! Then on Saturday we all drove up to Baltimore to pick Patrick up from the airport and then decided to go to the harbor for dinner, seeing how we were already mostly there.

 

Having had a busy few weeks of commuting back and forth from Tucson Patrick decided to take it easy one Friday and came to visit me for lunch downtown... We went to the USDA farmers market for lunch (one of the last ones of the year) and then he went off to the National Gallery of Art for a bit.

Throughout October we have been excited to see the leaves start to change color... this is a shot from when I walked Evie to school before her big field trip to the Smithsonian Chesapeake Discovery Center. She had a ton of fun in the tidal pools and came home and informed us that she wanted to be a biochemist who studies the ocean because "they just couldn't answer all my questions."

Finally, keeping with our memorial theme, two weekends ago we went to the Jefferson Memorial, which Patrick was pretty sure he had never made it to before. We almost didn't make it ourselves because it was sooo windy and cold. Afterward we uber'ed to waterfront and met a friend of mine from high school who was visiting and another who recently moved to town for a late lunch/early dinner.

Then that night back at home we walked through the annual Garrett Park "spooky woods", which was a lot of fun.  I for one was glad to have a Halloween analog here to our Tucson favorite of Valley of the Moon.  For the spooky woods the local high school students decorate a short trail that everyone then walks (or in Genevieve's case runs) through.

Halloween 2016!

All sorts of other things to catch up on... but first some awesome Halloween (and Halloween related) pics...

This is what they did when I asked them to hug each other....

Patrick volunteered today in both girl's classrooms for the Halloween festivities.

Evie and a few of her friends from class.... (at school)

Evie's 4th grade class...

Evie doing some sort of whipped cream contest...

But before all the festivities.... yesterday we went out to Mt. Airy to have some fun and acquire pumpkins to carve.

There was a "pillow" jumper"

A corn maze...

That had... you guessed it... corn!

There was also large slides (complete with burlap sacs)

Rides so cool even this cool girl loved them :)

This "kid" had some fun on the slides too.

Evie helped her littlest cousin with the goats

And at least a 1/2 hour was spent at the duck races where hand pumps and cut pipes were used to create serious fun!

 Back at home last night we carved our pumpkins... Izzy ended up buying a gourd, which almost needed an electric tool for Patrick to carve it was soooo tough.

Last but not least.... the spooky house... complete with a witch :)