Goodbye Virginia!

We moved! Okay, so it's been over a month, but most of the boxes have finally been unpacked (and those that aren't will probably stay that way for a while) and I finally have some time to blog about our adventures moving back to California. This post is mostly for us to remember our last few days in Virginia. So now we see what I can remember about our move.

The movers came on Tuesday to pack us up. Robert spent the two days chit chatting with the movers while I did errands, had a play date, and took the kids swimming to stay out of their way. By the end of the first day they still hadn't finished packing us all up, so the next day they had a little more packing to do before they could load the truck. And they got there a little late. And it rained half the day. So they were there for a long time the second day.

The movers had a huge semi-truck that was taking three different households across the country, so fitting it into our little parking lot was a bit of an issue. They were able to back it up close to our door, but blocked 1/4 of the parking lot. That was fine during the day when no one is home, but the movers didn't leave until 8:00 pm (or possibly later...) so I felt bad for the people who had to find street parking that night because we were blocking the lot. By then the moving truck couldn't maneuver around the parked cars either so they had to leave their huge trailer in our parking lot in the fire lane until morning when most of the cars were gone again.

Wednesday night we stayed at the historic Renaissance Mayflower down the street from the White House, and the next day Robert went back to the townhouse early and did most of the cleaning while I entertained the kids again at the hotel until Robert came to pick us up in the rental car. The one time we actually could have used our two cars and they were halfway across the country by then! This is Julia pointing to our townhouse, the "red house" while Robert was inside doing the walk through with the new owners (our original landlord sold the home the last month we were there, so we had a new landlord for one week and we had our walk through with them. It was kind of weird.)

Julia understood pretty well what was going on, she's smart like that. 

After that we spent Thursday night in DC again. The next morning we went to breakfast at Founding Farmers, and I mention this because it was delicious! If you are ever in DC I would highly recommend it, but you must make a reservation or come during an non-busy time. We went to breakfast at like 10:00 am so most people were already done with breakfast by then and the lunch crowd hadn't come in yet. We tried for dinner the night before without reservations and it was like an hour and a half wait, so we went somewhere else.

We checked one last thing off our DC bucket list: The Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Since they don't allow pictures inside we just have this one of us waiting for the tour and another of Julia and Micah in the gift shop. Julia is as tall of a stack of $100 bills worth $885,400. I'm glad we got to see it before we left, it was kind of cool to see stacks and stacks of millions of dollars being made.

Then we left DC and Virginia for good and headed up to Baltimore, MD!

Our Last Week in Virginia

We move in four days!  This past week has been a lot of fun and a lot of getting ready to move. Luckily we have movers so we don't have to do a lot of packing, but there's still a lot to get organized.

This past week we went to the zoo with Robert's work. Robert had his camera out the whole time, but as we were walking back to our car he said "I didn't take any pictures of the kids." So we have plenty of pictures of the orangutans on the o-line, but this is the only picture we have of Julia- Julia and Robert eating ice cream. Robert's new hobby is photography so he was more interested in getting good pictures than taking pictures of the kids.

We also had to run down the gas on our car before it gets shipped to California, so the kids and I took a drive out to Frying Pan Farm Park where we saw the animals, rode the carousel, and went on a wagon ride.

Micah spent the day under a burp cloth because I couldn't find his hat.

We have a million pictures of Micah just smiling but he's just so cute I can't resist taking more.

Finally, yesterday we were given tickets spur of the moment to a Nationals baseball game but got there after the game started and couldn't find any parking. So Robert and Julia had a daddy/daughter date at the baseball game while Micah and I drove the car over to the National Mall and went to the National Gallery of Art, one of the few place in in DC I hadn't been to yet that was on my list of things to see.

Pittsburgh Children's Museum

While we were in Pittsburgh we spent a day at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. Or an afternoon I guess. The motto of this trip was take it easy, so we didn't get out the door from our hotel until after 11:00 a.m. Julia had a lot of fun here. She is at an age now where she can really get into the things meant for kids (Disneyland this year is going to be fun!). 

The museum was separated into different rooms with themes (we don't have pictures from every room), and this was essential the art room. Here she is doing silk screening. They had a table where they could cut out different shapes out of scratch paper, then they would silk screen it. I had Julia draw the shapes and I cut them out.

Concentrating on the silk screening.

I got paint on me!

The finished product. The shapes she drew were a blob, a tear shape, and a tracing of her hand.

She was also a big fan of the paint and easels. We ended up with half a dozen Julia masterpieces for us to take home.

This room had a big track and lots of wheeled contraptions the kids could take around the track. Julia liked the little trike they had the best, but I got a laugh seeing Robert pulling Princess Julia along on whatever this rolly thing is called.

The water room had a bunch of large tubs where they could float boats, splash in the water, or play with water toys. They had these cute little ponchos to put over their clothes, but every kid that came out of there was soaked in some way or another. You could tell the people who came prepared because they brought a change of clothes for this room.

Julia was no exception. We didn't bring a change of clothes, but this was the last area we had left to visit, so afterwards we repeated a couple rooms again (like the art room) and walked five minutes back to our hotel. Total non-stressful day for me since Robert spent the entire time playing with Julia while I took care of Micah.

Space Shuttle Discovery

Last Tuesday we got the chance to see the Space Shuttle Discovery on it's final flight as it was carried on top of a Boeing 747 around Washington D.C. Since I'm still getting up multiple times a night to feed Micah I wasn't sure if we would be up and ready by 9:00 a.m., which is when I figured we would have to leave our house to get to a good viewing spot. Robert was going to walk down to the Mall from his work, so he took the digital camera and left me the video camera in case I decided I could make it.

At 8:00 a.m. I had finished feeding Micah and Julia was awake, so I figured maybe we would be able to make it. It was a very fast morning of getting three people ready, but we made it out the door at exactly 9:00 a.m. The traffic was very heavy getting into D.C. and we ended up parking at Teddy Roosevelt Island and walking down the bike path a quarter mile to a good viewing spot across the river from the Lincoln Memorial. Every other place I passed was packed with people. I was quite surprised at how many people turned out to see it, and by how many people did NOT turn decide to park at Teddy Roosevelt Island. We had a great view, without the crowds. 

By the time we got through traffic and parked and were finally walking down the bike path it was 9:53. I figured we were good since we still had about 10 minutes to get to a good viewing spot, when I heard a really loud plane directly overhead and caught a five second glance of the shuttle going right over us. It was pretty disappointing to only get a five second glance at it, and Julia didn't even get to see it. I thought that was it, but decided to keep walking since we were out anyway. But the shuttle came back three more times once we had gotten to a good viewing spot and gave the thousands of people watching it along the Mall and the Potomac River, including Julia, Micah and I, a good show.

I got some good video of the shuttle and decided to take a picture with my phone the last time the shuttle came around. So here it is on my phone going past the Lincoln Memorial (above), and Julia and Micah with the Memorial in the background.

And here is Robert's picture with our digital camera. They opened up the roof of his building for people to watch, so he didn't have to walk down to the Mall after all.

Arlington National Cemetery/ Fun with Picasa

While my family was here we went to visit Arlington National Cemetery. The pictures are pretty self explanatory, so to have some fun with this post I edited most of the pictures with the new image processing tools in Picasa.

Cherry Blossoms

I know a lot of people are wondering when we are going to have this baby. We are too. We're hoping in the next couple of days as the braxton hicks contractions have stepped it up a notch in the past 24 hours, but if he doesn't come on his own by next Wednesday I'll be induced on the 28th. I'm feeling fine, just ready to hold a baby in my arms instead of in my belly.

I didn't really expect to see the cherry blossoms this year because I figured I would be in the hospital and have a newborn but...still no baby. So yesterday as we were taking a walk we realized it would be a perfect day to go see the cherry blossoms by the tidal basin.

US Navy Museum

On Saturday we finally did a little sight seeing with Kevin and Ellen and checked someplace off our list of places to see in DC that none of us had been to yet. We went to the US Navy Museum at the Navy Yard in DC. Since we did have a two year old with us we went through it pretty quickly and mostly looked at all the big stuff so Julia wouldn't get bored.

And it worked. Julia had a great time looking at all the large boat models and guns.

No princess pose in this one because she hadn't realized I was taking a picture of her yet.

After we saw the museum we toured the USS Barry, which is a Navy ship which was decommissioned in the 80's and is now a permanent tour boat docked in the Navy Yard for the public to tour.

What's Been Going On

We've been pretty boring around here lately just enjoying our last month without a newborn, but since it's been almost a month since my last post I guess I will just post about the little things going on.

Robert's brother Kevin and his wife Ellen have come to live with us until the end of March. Julia is loving all the extra attention she gets from them and they've been a big help to distract Julia while I get baby stuff ready. Ellen, Julia, and I have also been on a few outings, one to Frying Pan Farm

and one into the district to see the Smithsonian Castle and two small museums behind the castle we had never been to, The African Art Museum and The Sackler Gallery (Ancient Asian Art).

There were a lot of masks in the African Art Museum so I told Julia we could make some masks when we got home.

This pregnancy has been pretty comfortable up until now. I am just beginning to feel a little large and uncomfortable, but I guess that's to be expected in your last month of pregnancy. Micah is definitively getting ready to come.

Julia is still adorable.

And we celebrated Ellen's birthday on Sunday!