Yogi Zsa Zsa

Sometimes you just need a picture :-)

Allez Brussels!

Funny thing about climate economics: you tend to have a lot of meetings in exotic locales (South Africa, India, Japan, West Virginia...) which means that Allen periodically has to travel abroad for duty and country, and has on occasion asked me to join him. I have always demurred, for a variety of reasons: I was pregnant; the kids were too young; I had too much going on at work; I had a bad experience in Paris in high school and didn't want to go back.

But maybe because my passport had expired and I was filled with wanderlust, or maybe because after a hectic holiday season, a few days in a foreign country with my husband was too tempting, when Allen asked if I wanted to join him in Brussels over MLK weekend, for once I said, "yes."

We started checking on flights (and whether the government would broker a budget deal in time lest Allen be grounded by another shut-down while I enjoyed Belgium in January by myself) and checked with the grandparents to see if Grandpa Fawcett could handle picking the kids up on Friday the 17th and dropping them off on Tuesday the 21st while Mom Mom and Grandpa Don took the kids for the long weekend (and Mom Mom would help out Tuesday's drop-off). The stars seemed to align and after bidding the kids farewell, Allen and I headed off to Brussels.

It was a rough start for the kids and Mom Mom, as after they made it home from school to grab their stuff, our poor minivan failed to start, forcing them to move all their stuff (and safety seats) to Mom Mom's car, delaying their drive to Silver Spring where they encountered street closing which put the kibosh on their dinner plans. But pancakes the next morning, a trip to Great Falls and an afternoon at Aunt Katherine's (with bath toys!) more than made up for it.



Meanwhile, Allen and I had a lovely first day in Brussels, having been allowed to check into our hotel as soon as we arrived, which was before sunrise, and many hours before we thought we'd be allowed, which meant we could shower, change, get breakfast, sight-see, take a nap, and see some more sites before an early dinner and crashing. The next day we slept in until noon at which point we decided to delay a trip to Bruges (which would take an hour by train) in favor of visiting the Atomium (which was 15 minutes by metro). This was clearly a mistake as model of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times wasn't nearly as cool as the canal based Flanders city is rumored to be, and because of heavy rains the following day (my last day in Brussels), we never managed to make it there choosing instead to sleep in even later and shop for  souvenirs.

The trip home to DC proved interesting. Allen had a couple days of meetings, so we said goodbye on Tuesday morning as I headed out to the airport.  Meanwhile, both DCPS and the government closed in anticipation of 4-8 inches of snow that afternoon. By the time my flight landed in Dulles, about three inches had fallen, and while I suggested I could take a shuttle, Grandpa Fawcett gallantly braved the roads (which were mostly empty) to pick me up while Mom Mom stayed with the kids (and stayed over for a second night as the roads continued to deteriorate after I arrived back home). The kids were not particularly excited to see me, but they were pretty excited for a sleepover in Owen's room that night and a second snowday Wednesday (which meant, due to a scheduled half-day on Friday for staff-development, our kids got a whopping day and a half of school for the week bringing their 2014 tally up to 10.5 days).

Thursday the kids actually made it to school and I went to the office. Allen beat us home and was rewarded with a much more enthusiastic greeting then I'd received by our offspring, but it was hard to begrudge him since as much as I'd enjoyed our time overseas together, it was nice to have our family reunited and home.

(To see all our Belgium pictures, click here).

Lone Wolf of the Pinewood Derby

Owen sort of started Cub Scouts this year.  He's been going to the pack meetings, but as the only member of the Wolves this year, there haven't been any den meetings yet, so we've been a bit iffy on the whole thing so far.  But at the last pack meeting in November though, they announced the Pinewood Derby would be in January and that we couldn't pass up.

I remember building my Pinewood Derby car with Dad as a kid.  It was a metallic blue beauty, perfectly balanced with lead weights, and we spent countless hours working graphite into the wheels and axles.  It all paid off with a win at the West Branch pack level, and a trip to the eastern Iowa Pinewood Derby race in Cedar Rapids.  I didn't go any further, but it was my favorite memory from my Cub Scout days.

We brought Owen's Pinewood Derby kit to Iowa to start working on his car in Uncle Ken's shop over Christmas, but it proved a little too cold to work out there, so we started in earnest in January.  Owen designed the car, Grandpa and Daddy did the sawing, and Owen worked on sanding (with a little extra help from Grandpa).  We took the car over to Katherine & Lee's to polish the axels and put on a coat of metallic red paint, and finished off the car with a curly W painted in white.

Saturday was race day, and Owen was all set with a cool looking car and a new Cub Scout uniform. All the cars looked pretty slick, and when Owen finished 5th in the first heat (I missed filming it), we were a little worried about the competition.  In the second heat (1st race in the video) he came in 3rd, and things were looking up.  The third heat (labeled second heat below, oops) he came in second, but the race wasn't recorded, so he had to do the third heat again (this time correctly labeled third heat in the video) and he rocked it with another 2nd place finish, so no harm done.  We waited for the scores to be tallied: out of about 60 cars the top 24 would advance, and sure enough Owen advanced to the next round.  In Owen's Quarterfinal race he finished a very strong 2nd place to advance to the Semifinals. Now his car was going up against some real tough competition.  The kids gathered around eagerly and the cars went off in the tightest pack we'd seen all day.  The top three would advance to the finals. The car in lane 6 eeked out the victory about one length ahead of the second place car in lane 5, who in turn was ahead of Owen and the rest of the pack by a little less than a length.  The last four cars, fighting for the final spot came across the line in a photo finish, separated by no more than a fraction of an inch, the electric eye gave the last spot in the finals to the car in lane 4 and Owen was across the line in 6th place. He may have missed the finals, but it was a great run for the lone Wolf on Capitol Hill, and I'm sure he'll be back for more next year.


(click here for all the pictures)

Skates!

The kids' skates were a big hit at Christmas, so much so that they wouldn't even let the snow and cold in Iowa stop them from trying them out.  So we knew we would have to get them over to the Rec Center for some skating as soon as we had some decent weekend weather at home, and sure enough they had a blast skating around the track.

The next stop was to hit the big time with a trip to an old school roller rink with the Brown's.  We made a night out of it with a trip to Denny's (don't ask), and an awesome time skating the night away.



(click here for all the pictures)

2013: The Year in the Eyes of Babes

For Christmas 2012, we gave each kid their own camera and let them loose. Just over a year later, we finally got around to downloading the fruits of their labor. It's not terribly surprising that both kids have inherited Allen's love of documenting even the most trivial of life events, but it's pretty endearing to see how they did so.

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(Please click here for highlights of Owen's pictures, and here for Nora's.)

Christmas 2013

2013 is a year for Christmas in Iowa, but before we left, the season got off to a great start with our open house, Owen's Holiday concert, and Christmas caroling with our old neighbors.  After caroling on Friday night, we went home to pack the car, and got ready to hit the road ridiculously early.  For several reasons we decided to attempt the drive to Iowa in one day: Katherine & Lee are no longer in Cleveland, Grandpa Fawcett was going to ride out with us to Iowa (providing an extra driver), and perhaps most importantly a blizzard was bearing down on Iowa, so if we were going to make it for Christmas, we had to make it quick.  In fact Uncle Ken called on Friday night to inquire when we were planning on leaving, and when Dad said 6 am, Ken simply said, "you better get off earlier."  So in the morning we carried the sleeping kids out to the already packed car, and were on the road by 5:30 am.  It started raining a little after Breezewood, didn't stop until just before we reached the Mississippi, and the snow started falling as we dropped off Dad at Ken & Helen's.  The kids did great on the 14 hour drive, and when we woke up to 6 inches of snow in the morning, we knew we made the right call.

We were the first to arrive at Grandma & Grandpa Z's, so the first few days in Iowa were relatively quiet.  We stayed in on Sunday to recuperate from the drive just making it outside to build a snowman, but on Monday we braved the bitter cold (it got down to -15 below that night!) to go over to Ken & Helen's for dinner (at noon, so it wasn't supper).  Thomas & Jen were battling various illnesses in the family, so we didn't get to see the boys, but Nora had a great time playing with Grace, and Owen got to break out the flexible flyer for some fun but cold sledding down the drive with Daddy and Grandpa.



Dave & Kara got in on Christmas Eve with a much needed burst of extra energy to keep up with the kids.  We convinced Mommy to let Owen and Nora open one present each, wrote notes to Santa, ate lots of Christmas cookies and candy, and made it to midnight Mass (well, 9 pm Mass, but it felt late enough with the kids).

Christmas morning brought all sorts of treasures under the tree from Santa, but I think the big hit were Nora's roller skates and Owen's rollerblades.  You might think that these were Summer toys that would have to languish in a closet for months before being played with, but no, the kids insisted on bundling up and skating in the snow.  And truth be told, they were right.  The kids had a great time on their skates, even in the cold and snow.



On Thursday we squeezed in a quick serendipitous visit with the Mettenburgs (who were in Iowa for Joe's nephew's wedding) in the morning, and Steve, Becky and all the cousins arrived around lunch. Owen was over the moon to have his cousin Sam around to play with, and Nora got a chance to be the big kid showing cousin Erin the ropes.  We opened more presents, played lots of hide and seek, and had a grand time with the whole Zimmerman family in the house.  That night Owen had a sleepover down in the basement with Sam, and Nora had a sleepover with Erin upstairs.  The boys were out almost instantly, but the girls could not seem to settle down and fall asleep.  After a few too many times getting out of bed, we decided that it might not have been all Nora's fault as she told us that Erin was getting up, going to the bathroom, getting a handful of liquid soap, and smearing it on Nora's cheeks.  We think she was just trying to share the secret of her wonderful smelling skin ;-)

All trips must eventually come to an end, so we hit the road for home on Friday (after not nearly enough time with the cousins according to Owen).  We stopped just outside Toledo on the way back to break up the drive into two days, and were home by Saturday night.  Christmas wasn't quite over yet though.  Sunday morning we had a faux Christmas brunch at Mom Mom & Grandpa Don's with Katherine & Lee, and Nancy, Danny and Christopher.  Mom Mom made delicious waffles, we opened more presents, and long last Christmas was over.



(click here for all the pictures)

Elfis is in the building

Owen informed us back in November that he was cast as a body guard in Watkin's 2nd grade holiday play. The role required a dark suit, some sunglasses, and maintaining order at the North Pole. On the designated morning, Allen and I dutifully took off work and recruited Mom Mom and Grandpa Fawcett to join us for, "Elfis and the Sleigh Riders." It was quite an event and Owen (and his classmates) totally rocked it.

We Are at a Play!

We've been a bit obsessed with Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie series (Nora in particular) so when we heard the Kennedy Center was staging, "We Are in a Play," we made a mad dash to get tickets (which was a good thing given every show sold out). Kids and adults had a great time and Nora even got to hang out with her friend Jack who just happened to have seats next to us. Banana!

House Party

We'd been meaning to have a get together with our old neighbors for a while, but as the months passed and the holidays loomed, we decided to go for broke and invite all our local friends to our place for some Christmas cheer. It was a little slow goings at first (only the Browns and Mom Mom were there for the first hour), but things eventually picked up until the house was fairly hopping.  Later, we were able to reflect on the evening, which taught us how quickly a gaggle of seven year olds can morph into a Lord of the Flies gang which catapults brownies. And that no party is complete without a plank-off.  And that if you have a former NFL athlete in your midst, then someone's going to feel compelled to challenge them to some ridiculous test of meddle.  And that we are really lucky to have such great friends and family so close by.

Animal House

In the middle of the kids' piano lesson on Thursday night, our neighbor Danielle stopped by and in hushed tones (in case I said, "No, thank-you") informed us that they would be having a petting zoo over at their house from 7:00 -8:00 pm that night and we were welcome to stop over with the kids. It seems that Danielle was charged with the hosting and entertainment duties for her office holiday party and that after her first suggestion of a DJ was vetoed, she decided to go in a different direction...

It was pretty impressive to see our neighbors' back yard filled with a pony, llama, goat, sheep, pig and numerous bunnies, ducks and chickens (also a little disturbing given the animals proximity to the pit their brethren has been roasted in for previous parties). The kids loved it and it certainly made for an interesting night at home.

Membership has its privileges

We try to make it out every year to see the trains at the Botanical Gardens, but it can be a challenge. As the space is fairly small and the demand fairly large, you can end up waiting outside in the cold for an hour or so, or more accurately, Allen can wait outside in the cold while the rest of us check out the other exhibits until her texts us. Once inside, we usually only spend about 15 minutes watching the trains before the crowds chased us out.

But a month or so before its unveiling, I got an email from the "Moms on the Hill" list-serve informing me that by joining the Friends of the National Botanic Garden Fund we could both support Owen's favorite place on earth, and attend the holiday preview of their annual "Season's Greenings" display which meant avoiding the masses and getting to enjoy cookies, wine, and hot chocolate while leisurely touring the gardens after dark.

So I sent off a check and an RSVP for five, and on Saturday night we (including Grandpa Fawcett) spent an hour and a half marveling at all the wonders. The entire center was largely empty which meant we had the run of the place (literally -- Owen and Nora kept disappearing down pathways) and could spend as long as we wanted in each room enjoying DC in miniature as well as various scenes and trains (this year's theme was World Fairs). It was a pretty magical night which was topped off by swinging by the National Christmas tree on our way out.

It was by far the best and easiest way to indulge one of our favorite holiday traditions and as it doesn't require Allen to battle the elements, probably means we're about to become lifetime members.

(To see all the Botanic Garden pictures, please click here.)

Nora, the Crocodile Lover

Given how much the kids (and us adults, too) enjoyed "Lulu and the Brontosaurus" at the Imagination Stage, Mom Mom decided we should also check out "Lyle the Crocodile." Nora in particularly loved the show (there was singing, and tap-dancing and a deranged cat!), and while she was too shy to meet the cast, she at least allowed us to get a picture of her near them.

TJ Class of '93

As hard as it may be to believe, it's been 20 years since I graduated from High School. And while the winds of fortune have scattered us about the globe, Thanksgiving weekend brought many of us that still have family in the area back home, and proved a great time for our class reunion.  Of course I had to dig through my yearbook, and resurrect some old photos before the big event, finding scraps of evidence for my Robert Smith-esque (or was it Flock of Seagulls like) hair, but alas no record was kept of my purple locks.

While there are a few people from TJ that I still see from time to time (or at least see on Facebook), I was very pleasantly surprised to see some old friends come out of the woodwork.  I had a great time catching up with everyone, giving Elaine a glimpse of my High School life, and even appropriately (for a Science & Tech H.S. reunion) dorked out with Google Glass, though much like High School, virtually no one danced.  We closed down the reunion, and went over to the after-party at an Irish bar with Paul and Joe, and stayed out celebrating until 2 a.m., which I discovered is not nearly as easy to do as it was 20 years ago.

(click here for my pictures, and here for all the official pictures)

Thanksgiving 2013

 This being an odd year, we had our traditional Thanksgiving dinner in Old Town with Nancy & Danny.  We may well have set a record this year for the most people their place for Thanksgiving. Christopher was there of course, Dad came with us to dinner, and Mom & Don were there, along with Katherine, Lee and Makayla.  Adrienne joined in for her 10th Thanksgiving in a row with Nancy & Danny, and she even brought her Mom this time!  The table was so big this year that Danny, sitting at the head of the table, was actually in a different room.  Nancy made her famous mole gravy, Danny cooked a superb turkey, Christopher meticulously placed all of the mini-marshmallows in perfect order on his sweet potatoes, Mom made her grandmother's dinner rolls, and Elaine indulged me with my favorite pumpkin pie.  It was a wonderful time to stuff ourselves silly, and be thankful for such wonderful family and friends.

 
(click here for all the pictures)

On Belay!

Back in High School, I spent many hours bouldering on the rocks at Great Falls, and after a few too many close calls, decided that I better get a rope and learn to properly rock climb.  So I took some rock climbing classes in college, and learned how to do things the right way.  In grad school, there was a group of us that did quite a bit of climbing in Austin and elsewhere around Texas, but I haven't managed to get out climbing much since moving back to DC.

For the last couple years, Owen has shown some affinity for scrambling around on the rocks whenever we go to Great Falls, so I knew that sooner or later we'd have to get him roped up.  When Andrew, one of my climbing buddies from Texas, checked in on the morning of Veteran's day and asked if Owen and I wanted to join him and his son Luke climbing at Carderock (on the MD side of Great Falls), of course we had to jump at the chance.  I dug out my old climbing gear, whipped together a webbing harness for Owen, and we headed out to the rocks.  The weather was perfect for climbing, and Owen did a great job climbing up three different routes.  It was probably the last decent climbing day of the season, but no doubt we'll be back out there for more in the Spring!


(click here for all the pictures)

Sleep Over

Aunt Katherine has been lamenting that now that she doesn't live in Cleveland (conveniently about 45% of the way to Iowa) we never spend the night at her place anymore. Meanwhile, former sk8ter boy, Brad Brown, has been coveting the relatively unobstructed hill Katherine lives by. So, with a three day weekend and perfect weather in the forecast, we decided to make them both very happy by inviting ourselves over for the night and the Browns over for the afternoon.

The grownups got the lay of the land before inviting the kids to try out the lane on their scooters. We then had a few rounds of ladder ball and corn hole (plus some frolicking in the leaves and some bamboo jousting) before the Browns had to head home.

Shortly thereafter, Mom Mom and Grandpa Don came over and after some more corn hole, ladder ball a state quarter sorting frenzy and some Sponge Bob Squarepants (with commercials!), we headed out for some food and a couple of pitchers of margaritas before Mom Mom and Don called it a night. Back at Katherine's, the kids cheered Grandpa Fawcett on to a darts victory before we finally tucked them in for the night, and then the rest of us settled in for a game of Phase 10 (or "Phase 11" in Katherine's version). We eventually made it to bed some time after midnight, which could have been terrible, since the kids woke up sometime around 7 am, but fortunately, since we were at Aunt Katherine's, we just sent them up to see her...



(To see all the pictures from our day/night at Aunt Katherine's, click here.)

Field Trip

I had the pleasure of chaperoning Nora's class field trip to the National Gallery of Art West Wing this week.  The kids all played Art Detectives, and tried out different ways of thinking about the artworks, exploring the use of color, posing as different subjects, and even imagining the sounds that a painting evokes.  The kids were all great, and it really is wonderful that we have such amazing cultural resources right in our backyard.  Hopefully we'll be back soon!


(Click here for all the pictures)

Japan

For quite a while it was clear that I was going to be traveling internationally at the end of October, but I wasn't quite sure where I'd end up going.  There was a meeting in Bariloche, Argentina at the base of the Andes in Patagonia that I was really hoping to go to, but in the end I was more needed at a meeting in Tsukuba, Japan.  I'd been to Japan before, back in 2006 shortly after Owen was born.  On that trip I had a day in Tokyo, and I didn't remember too much of interest in Tsukuba, so I wasn't anticipating anything too exciting from a travel perspective, and I was a bit bummed about missing out on Argentina.  It turned out though that I had Friday afternoon open, and a couple of us took a bus to Mt. Tsukuba for a really interesting hike.  We took a gondola up to the top of the mountain, hiked up to the summit temple, then hiked along the ridge line over to another summit temple, and hiked down to an amazing temple complex at the base of the second mountain.  The views from the summits were beautiful, the hike down through the different types of trees at various elevations was gorgeous, and the temple at the base was the perfect end to a Japanese mountain hike.  It all made me feel a little bit better about missing out on Patagonia.


(click here for all the pictures)

All Hallows

Beggars' night was a little off this year. Allen was in Japan which meant he missed out not only on the trick-or-treating, but also the recording for posterity our kids in all their costume glory (I did the best I could, but ninjas are notoriously hard to capture on film and princess can be capricious, particularly when there's candy to collect). Fortunately, while Allen couldn't be there, his source material was as both Mom Mom and Grandpa Fawcett helped with the trick-or-treating and insuring we ended up with the right kids at the end of the night (though we apparently also pick up a queen somewhere...).

Grandparents' Days

So prior to the machinations and insanity that was the government shutdown, we suggested to Grandma and Grandpa Z that they should visit us in mid-October when the kids were off school for a couple of days, to enjoy all that DC has to offer. For a while it looked like DC didn't actually have anything to offer and we were doing searches for family friendly vineyards in Virginia and state parks in Maryland as their arrival loomed, but then miraculously the government re-opened just in time for me to ask for leave to pick my parents up from the airport.

We got a lot in over the course of a few days. On Friday we drove down to Skyline Drive where we had a picnic lunch and then Allen, Grandpa Z and the kids went for a hike on the Appalachian Trail to Compton's Peak while Grandma Z and I took more of a leisurely stroll through the woods. On Saturday, Allen and Grandpa Z went sailing with Grandpa Don (after dance class and t-ball, of course) while Grandma Z the kids and I headed over to our old neighborhood for their annual block party. On Sunday we met up with Mom Mom and Grandpa Don at Imagination Stage to see, Lulu and the Brontosaurus. Monday Grandma and Grandpa Z babysat while Allen went to work and I went to conferences after which we headed over to Great Falls for a little more nature. Tuesday the kids went to school and Allen and I went to work for at least part of the day while Grandma and Grandpa Z recovered from their many adventures and did laundry. Wednesday Grandma and Grandpa Z flew home but promised to return in January if the government shut down again...

(To see all the pictures from Grandma & Grandpa Z's visit, please click here.)

And so it ends...

So after 16 days, Allen and I are finally at work -- though I had to leave early in order to pick my parents up from the airport and my first order of business upon reporting for duty was to ask for the next three days off for their visit...

Meanwhile...

Allen and I have been slowly completing our to-do lists (and adding to it after the ceiling started leaking Friday night...) as the shutdown drags on and the kids are in school, which leaves us with lots of time and energy to hang out with the kids on the weekend. So Saturday, Nora skipped dance class to attend her friend Miyako's "Frog Princess" birthday party, and while the rest of the attendants decided to skip out on the nature hike owing to the remnants of Tropical Storm Karen, a little fairy and I enjoyed a lovely walk in the woods.

When we got back, the Mettenburgs had arrived to attend Joe's 20th high school reunion while we watched Hugh and Gigi, the latter of whom enjoyed a sleepover with Owen and Nora (who especially enjoyed it). Since Joe & Cate had to leave just after lunch on Sunday, we decided to take advantage of the Capitol City Symphony furlough discount and expose the kids to a little added culture (though we probably shouldn't have exposed them quite so closely...).

It was a lot to do over just a couple of days. Good thing we had Monday off for Columbus Day in order to be fully rested for work... oh, never mind.

(To see more fairy pictures, click here.)

I am a Beautiful Fairy!

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Field Trip

I volunteered to chaperone Nora's first field trip before the shutdown looked like it was going to happen, and was a little concerned I wasn't going to have enough leave to cover it. Turns out that wasn't a problem.

So on Wednesday, instead of my regular furlough tennis match with Allen, I went with Nora and her classmates (technically I met Nora and her classmates as there wasn't enough room for all the volunteers on the bus) back to the same Homestead Farms where we'd picked apples a few days before. Thankfully, the temperature had dropped about 30 degrees in the intervening days, making it much more enticing to pick pumpkins, meet farm animals and participate in hayrides. Even more luckily, the remnants of Tropical Storm Karen held off Wednesday morning and we didn't get rained on the entire trip (the same couldn't be said for the poor preschoolers that went on Thursday).

(To see all the field trip pics, click here.)

Shutdown Week 2

So this whole shutdown thing is going on far longer than we anticipated. There is at least some hope now that we will receive back pay after this is all resolved, and many local businesses have been very supportive throughout the whole ordeal. (Special shout out to Atlas Brew Works for the discounted growlers!) Still, it's not a good feeling to be a pawn in this whole standoff, and having chosen a career of public service, and truly believing in the work that we do, this whole ordeal has become incredibly painful and disheartening. Can we please go back to work?

Apple Picking

Before all the shutdown madness started, Mom Mom and Aunt Katherine suggested an apple-picking excursion. We checked our schedules (ours, were incredibly open but the kids had some stuff going on...) and decided that Sunday afternoon would be perfect. And aside from it being 90 degrees in October, it was.

We got some fresh air, picked a lot of apples -- cameo, enterprise, fuji and suncrisp -- and even snuck in some surreptitious bites (when you're not getting a paycheck, sometimes you have to channel your inner Jean Valjean in order to feed the kids). It was a welcome distraction from the goings on in DC and our bounty meant that I had some additional chores to fill my time with in the upcoming week.

(To see all the apple picking pics, click here).

Shut Down

It's been a weird week here in Washington. On Monday, we dutifully reported to our respective offices, working feverishly to complete everything that needed to be done over the next few days on the off chance that the government was unable to reach some sort of agreement regarding its budget. On Tuesday we reported to these same offices to record phone greetings and email auto-responses informing people that due to the current fiscal disagreement, we wouldn't be able to help them and if they left a message we'd get back to them when the government re-opened. Then we secured our offices, went home and drank (ok, technically we played tennis first).

It really shouldn't have come as a surprise that our government would eventually implode, after all, we've been doing "shut-down" prep every nine months or so and our last debt ceiling crisis was a little less than two years ago. But typically, these things involve a flurry of activity at the last minute allowing us to just skirt disaster, and this time there was no activity at all.



So we hunkered down. We organized things in the house. And I calculated just how much this was costing us in lost wages (enough to hurt, in addition to the thousands Allen lost being furloughed nine days earlier this year due to the Sequester). By day three of the shutdown, we started the process of applying for unemployment insurance shortly before we picked our kids up from school where our daughter had been in lock-down due to a shoot-out with the Capitol Police two blocks from her campus. It was a pretty bad day.

It's hard not to take much of this personally. Allen works for the EPA and I spent a fare amount of time over the past three years working on ACA related stuff -- which means we're both on Ted Cruz's hit list. And while we're spending a lot of time feeling sorry for ourselves (we do, after all, have a lot of time on our hands just now), we recognize that we're pretty lucky. We don't live paycheck to paycheck or have crushing debt or medical bills which means that even if we don't receive back pay (though it looks like we might), we'll be fine. A lot of federal workers won't be.

And so we continue to wait. And hang pictures. And work on our back hands. And drink increasingly lower quality alcoholic beverages. And do yard work at Katherine and Lee's place for food.  And hope that one day we'll get a tweet that we can actually go back to work.

September Round-Up

We blogged a lot this summer, and since we didn't have a working computer and/or were traveling for much of that time, we wrote a whole lot of blog posts in a small period of time. It was a bit draining. So after Nora's birthday party (which was after Nora's birthday, which was after school started which was after Owen's birthday party which was...), we decided we needed a break. A little time apart. To get some perspective on it all.

But now we're back, and complete with a highlights reel:

• Nora started ballet/tap
• Owen started another season of t-ball
• We went to the last Nats home-game of the season (ok, technically the second to last -- they had to make up a rained out game afterwards, but ours was the last scheduled one).
• The Nats were eliminated from the playoffs
• Owen started cub scouts
• and Allen and I took in a cultural event at the 9:30 club

And with that, we prepare ourselves for a fun filled October...

Party Foul

Nora's birthday party was supposed to be easy -- it was our fourth party at The Little Gym and as it didn't involve me being 9+ months pregnant (the first one) or a tornado (the third one), we figured this one would be pretty simple. But while innocently confirming our pizza order late in the afternoon on Friday, I discovered that the powers that be were under the mistaken impression that the party (which I had booked six weeks before) began at 6:30 pm rather than the contracted 4:30 pm and that another party had been scheduled for the same time.

It was then that the panic set in. Even if I was ok with having 15 four year olds from all over the metro area (which means some of them had to drive an hour each way to get to the fete) celebrating Nora's birthday from 6:30 to 8:00 pm on a Saturday night (and to be clear, I wasn't), I wasn't sure how to contact them all to inform them of the change given several were daycare friends who's only contact info I had was their parents' work emails which aren't necessarily the best way to contact folks on a Friday night.

For an hour I kept leaving increasingly hysterical voicemails to The Little Gym (which hadn't responded to my email with the confirmation info and wasn't taking my calls). I called Grandpa Don to ask if I had any legal recourse. I discussed with Mom Mom alternative party venues that could accommodate 15 little kids that might have an opening in the next 24 hours. I drank a lot of wine.

And then I got the magical email apologizing and saying that the party was still on. (They called later and offered to give us the party for free if we took the later time slot, but we demurred).

We arrived the next afternoon with a feeling of trepidation, but despite the confusion and anxiety, it ended up being a pretty amazing party. All the kids had a really good time, Nora loved being the center of attention, and her friend Lizzie even proclaimed it "the best party ever."

Which made us feel pretty good about things...till Owen asked Nora on the way home where she wanted to have her next birthday party.

(Special thanks to Mia, Ben, Violet, Lizzie, Hazel, Jo Jo, Curtis, Miyako, Erin, Evan, Makayla, and Natalie for spending this afternoon with us. To see all the party pics, please click here).

Inbetween

Because Nora's birthday is invariably around Labor Day and because her birthday is only 11 days after Owen's, we always move her friends' celebration back a week to maximize party attendance as well as give ourselves a three day reprieve. And so, instead of corralling 15 four year olds around over the weekend, we:

• Went to the Nat's game and watched a post-loss fireworks extravaganza;
• Went sailing;
• Went to the National Gallery;
• Had multiple playdates;
• Discovered even more water features at Aunt Katherine's and Uncle L's;
• Ate some serious birthday cake; and
• Opened a lot of presents

And on the third day we rested in preparation for the second week of school (and subsequent corralling of said four year olds).

The Fantastic Four

I once heard a report on NPR that cuteness peaks at age three. The argument was that babies needed to be attractive in order to convince parents to care for them, but once they hit age four, they were self-sufficient enough that the biological imperative to be beautiful began to fade.

I've never been able to find the study since, mind you, but I believe it. In part because it's hard to imagine Nora becoming any more adorable than she was this year (when she wasn't on the floor kicking and screaming, that is). But mostly it's because a year ago, we had a cute toddler still in diapers (barely), who napped (sometimes), and used a bee bee, and now we have a little girl who doesn't require any of that (well, maybe the nap at times), who goes to school, can "read," and pretty much runs the whole show. And while I'm so proud of how independent Nora has become, I hope she still "needs" us for many years to come. Happy Birthday, baby girl, I love you so, so much.

1. Strike a pose.
2. Breakfast dessert, lunch dessert and dinner dessert are all real things. Snack dessert is just crazy talk.
3. When life gives you lemons, ask for Pink Lemonade.
4. Princess tea parties are the best.
5. It's all about the accessories.
6. There is reading, and then there is "reading".
7. Mmmm, s'mores.
8. Sometimes, you just need a hug.
9. "Excuse me..."
10. And in the immortal words of Alan Watts, "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."