Fireworks in DC

The Fourth of July has become perhaps my favorite holiday. I like that it still means what it is supposed to; you can’t go to an independence day celebration without feeling at least a little bit patriotic. Plus I really like fireworks. They are so fun and spectacular and the chemistry is pretty cool too. It would be so much fun to be a firework developer (something to look into…graduate programs?) I was actually a little sad to leave Provo because I really liked the freedom festival where we could go to the hot-air balloon launch, walk the parade route backwards, and sit outside the stadium for the stadium of fire. Then I remembered, we are moving to the nation’s capital, they should be able to throw some awesome celebration. I’ve been pushing back Jack’s schedule so that he would be able to stay up late for fireworks and be able to adjust to Pacific time when we go to Seattle on Thursday. So after Jack got up from his second nap (at 7:15 pm) we headed out to the metro and into the city. We went to the Jefferson Memorial to watch the fireworks along side the Washington monument and across the tidal basin.

After waiting half an hour, the fireworks started. I was so looking forward to Jack enjoying the fireworks, but actually, he was quite scared. We thought he would be well prepared because we’ve had several thunderstorms (with some very loud thunder, it’s made me jump) and Jack has done great. Jack really likes Dr. Seuss’s Mr. Brown making thunder; he will find the page and go “boo, boo, boo!” and so we say “boom boom boom!” when it thunders and he likes it. No such luck with the fireworks though. He kept trying to run away from them, and managed to get free and went to the lap of a stranger (luckily he was wearing a BYU shirt so at least Jack knows who he can trust!). Jack settled down after a bit and started to watch, he even clapped. It was a really neat experience to celebrate in DC at my favorite memorial along with other people clapping and cheering to celebrate our country.

And then we had to make the exodus back to the metro with everyone else. We had heard horror stories about getting out of the city, and luckily it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Getting into the metro station was the worst, we were crammed body to body with everyone trying to get down one escalator, but we were only in that crowd for about 10 minutes. We all made it home and were in bed before midnight, so we call the night a success. We will probably be staying more local for the rest of our stay in DC, but I needed to be in the city at least once just because we can. 

Jack's Favorite Things

Balls

The Vacuum

Tackling Levi for his pacifier

What kid doesn't like the tupperware drawer?

Pizza (and pasta)

Climbing on everything.

Playing with a bag of sequins 

Fleece. We have a snuggie and he loves it. At Jo-Anns he was so giddy with excitement with all the bulk fleece.

He loves playing with water, but this bounce house was a little too much for him. His face says it all. 

Watching grass grow...

is so exciting. We set out to transform our backyard from a weed infested, rooty, mosquito oasis into a lush, green, mosquito oasis. We brought in several bags of topsoil to level the ground, and then seeded. We had to repeat a few times to cover the bare spots, and still have a few of them, but overall we are satisfied with our product.
I wish our before picture (Jack was so little!) was better but you can kind of see all the weeds and roots among the shadows. The after picture is Chris and Jack during the maiden voyage of our cute new lawn mower. A very proud day.
Before:

After:

Several weeks ago we finally took the bikes from the attic and have been able to go on a few family bike rides. We bought this neat seat for Jack and he rides along in front with me. He even likes his helmet (sometimes). Chris has even begun to ride his bike to school occasionally. It is faster than the bus and he can be on his own schedule. If only it wasn't so hot or humid.

He Crawls

Jack has reached a new milestone. In church we use to be able to confine him to our row since we could block the only exit he knew of. A few weeks ago he learned how to bear crawl out, he would walk on his hands and feet under the pew (no knees touching the ground) and then he would continue to walk on his hands well after he was done just to make sure he cleared the bench. It was pretty amusing for us because he’d never done anything like it before and so it was a little distracting. By the next Sunday he had finally learned how to crawl on his knees. And now there is no way to contain him. People don’t mind a baby wandering under their feet right? He seems to quite enjoy crawling. He’ll be walking around just fine and then drop to the floor and start to crawl, just because he can. Then he quickly goes back to walking since it is so much faster.
Other updates:

Jack is now weaned. It’s been a long time coming so now it is over. No more eating for two, darn it. I’m missing that already. I had a bunch of breast milk stored in the freezer so I gradually mixed it with whole milk. Now he is all cow.

He is still a little boy, 25% for head and weight, 50% for height. He is 20.5 lbs, but I don’t remember the rest of the measurements, sorry. I didn’t realized how skinny he was until he was wearing a disposable diaper for his doctor’s appointment and his pants were falling off him. I forgot how much bulkier the cloth ones were.

Enough of Jack. My parents came to visit for a week in at the end of April. Amazingly, Levi’s family took a vacation the exact time my parents were here, so we got to see the sights with them instead of being confined at home. We went to the national arbouritum to see the azaleas and bonsai trees among other things, parts of various smithsonians, and spent a day in west Virginia. On the weekend when Chris could join us, we went to Mount Vernon to see George Washington’s house and plantation. It was neat, a lot more to see and do than I expected.

We welcome any visitors!

 There has been much to celebrate this past week. On the 20^th was Jack’s first birthday. Of course we were excited to celebrate Jack being in our lives for a year and are so grateful to have him as our son and look forward to many more years of joy to come. Thank you to everyone for your gifts, cards, calls, and texts. He (and we) are loving the new toys and books to play with.

What I was looking forward to the most was the cake; it is my first on in Maryland and was so much fun. I was having such a hard time figuring out what to do and had so many different plans, but ended up just using color. The colors red, yellow, blue, and green are used to decorate his room and so I thought it would be appropriate for his cake. So many artificial colors can’t be too good for you, but all things in moderation. Jack ate it, but didn’t go crazy about it. So now we have a one-year old, and by all accounts he is officially a toddler. (The celebration was spread over a few days so he is wearing different clothes in all the pictures in case you were wondering.)

Like most everyone else, we celebrated Easter weekend. It was actually quite spiritual for me as well; I was surprised at how affected I was despite the weekend being so busy. We had stake conference and our relief society was put in charge of preparing a meal for the visiting authority and other priesthood leaders so I was busy with that, and Chris was in charge of a baptism that was a big deal for our ward, and Jack had to tag along with everything so he had no semblance of a normal schedule. But the evening session, the baptism, and the sacrament meeting from the previous week were all so good. It all reaffirmed what we believe and know to be true so it was great. Then to really celebrate we were so fortunate to have an awesome dinner with some friends out here. So much good food (ham!) and great company. Although it was a busy, crazy weekend, it was a perfect Easter.

 

Chris and I also had the opportunity to celebrate our anniversary for the first time. We have now been married three years. For our first anniversary Chris’s parents were in town for his graduation, and for our second, my parents we in town because it was five days after Jack was born. We were able to go out to eat (thanks to our Christmas present-thanks Tom and Marel!) and I was able to fulfill a life long dream of eating filet minon. And it was great. Chris got a steak and liked it as well. Apparently the 3^rd anniversary gift is supposed to be leather, so we ate beef.

Earth day was also in there somewhere, we try to do our part everyday so nothing special here.

Happy everything!

A zooy spring break

Since moving to Maryland we have had many new and interesting experiences. One such new feature of life here is that I get a spring break. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but if you or anyone you know has gone to BYU for school you know that they don't believe in spring break. Here in Maryland however, they lock the doors of the buildings and stop the campus buses from running which meant I had no option but  to break my habit of not having spring break. 

It was, in fact, quite nice to work from home. The only down side was that the weather got steadily colder as the week went by. It was as if BYU was reaching a cold hand down from the mountains to remind me that spring breaks should not be. Despite the weather we did have some fun. And, to help us have that fun my parents and brother came to visit for a long weekend. Hilary still had to babysit on weekdays, but we did all go to the National Zoo on Saturday.

The first neat thing about the zoo is that it is free. The second is they have large letters which spell "ZOO" in which you can have your picture taken. After that, you can see animals. Or if you are particularly lucky you might see a cute eleven month old walking around  wearing a cute hat (and large coat.) I learned this from the other zoo goers that day, many of whom made sure to let us know that Jack or his hat were cute. (Somehow they neglected to mention his father.)

Now, as a parent, I know that the main purpose of bringing a very young child to some neat place like the National Zoo is to later be able to say things like,"you've seen Pandas before. Don't you remember?" Even better is to have physical evidence, like the following pictures. In the years to come I plan to make great us of them to tell Jack about how last time we took him to see Pandas he wasn't even interested in them. 

One interesting fiction we learned at the Zoo was that due to large national deficit they now require the zoo inmates to earn their keep by doing work for the government. For instance the Pandas now act as parcel inspectors for the zoo post office. I admire their zeal for the work, but to be quite candid I think they got carried away. After the inspection both the parcel and its contents were quite the worse for wear.

Although the Pandas didn't really catch Jack's fancy, he really liked the elephants. This one was neat because it walked around swinging its trunk and then drank in a splashy way.

Jack also went to see the octopus demonstration, although he quickly decided that walking around the other exhibits while the crowd was by the octopus was a better idea. The octopus itself was from the pacific northwest, so Jack felt a close kinship to it.

The zoo also has a growing family of lions. We spent some time watching the young cubs sneak up on and ambush their dad. Jack liked that idea, but what really caught his interest at the zoo was the manhole cover. On our way from the primates to the lions Jack stopped to bend down and touch a manhole cover. Apparently, it was soooo neat that he sat down on it and investigated more closely. Pictured below Jack and his uncle Nathaniel discuss the pros and cons of manhole covers in general and this one in specific. 

After becoming an expert on zoo manholes we eventually had to head home. Jack was fine with riding the metro as long as he was able to stand and yell. He also much prefers riding above ground so he can see the world going by outside.

All in all, I think Jack and my parents enjoyed my spring break quite a lot. In fact, Jack had such a good time that he convinced his other grandparents that they needed to visit him too. I think he really likes all the attention. 

And he is demanding more and more attention these days. Recently he discovered how to climb the stairs. Unfortunately he has no going down the stairs skills. So, we now have baby gates to keep him from making unescorted ascents. He has also taken to walking while carrying an object in each hand. He will, for instance, pick up a pair of shoes one in each hand and carry them to the kitchen where he will drop the them on the floor. Jack is also starting to mimic some sounds. He has a stuffed cow that moos, and he now also moos. He has named everything that he likes dada. For instance banana is dada. Applesauce is dada. Going outside is dada. Daddy is dada. Mommy is dada. And meat is Ga. This seems to be his own invention. One day after every bite of meat he would say Ga! Since then all means have become Ga.

So anyway, that's the news on the Jack front. As for the rest of us, Hilary continues to work miracles at home including some exquisitely delicious meals and I'm still going to school. How is it going? Well, most days its pretty dada.