Spring 2017

Mother's Day is the most popular restaurant day of the year and for us, the food court at the Mall worked out for everyone.

Erin was proud of her tinker toy house

that folded up on its own. Kind of like the one designed by Frink's Security

 Erin was a soccer player this spring. Tessie just dressed the part.

 The older girls performed a car wash act for the acrodance recital. It was acrotastic!

 Mom's friend Julie visited from California

 She managed to locate Tessie in her secret hideout

 Regina Pizzeria always satisfies

 two full family photos!

Julie wanted to visit the Paul Revere house for research for an upcoming book

 Routes of Revere and Dawes on the night of April 18th 1775

 Memorial Day weekend we headed to New York, where the fish were biting

combined we landed 21 bass

 Outings on our weekend included the PepsiCo sculpture garden, brought to you by Diet Mountain Dew

 The grounds were all abloom

 and perfect for cartwheeling

 and chillaxing

 Bear Mountain State Park had a great old carousel with a Canada Goose that no one ever rode. Maybe 100 years ago they were not the pests they are now.

 Bare rock on Bear Mountain - get it? Now at 1.2 billion years old, these rocks have seen more than we will ever know, having formed on the supercontinent Rodinia back when life on Earth consisted solely of bacteria in the oceans

 Wait, they have bears on Bear Mountain? Makes sense. Love the bear-sized hammock,

 We were near the highest point on the AT at Clingman's Dome in the Smokies a couple of months earlier. Who knew that the lowest point is at the Hudson River crossing?

 We managed the 1200-foot ascent to the top of Bear Mountain for a great view up and down the river

 Wall Street, celebrated home of droves of morally bereft fortune-seekers, was not our intended destination in lower Manhattan. Nice to see that they've co-opted the American Flag as their giant symbol. I guess huge money bags wouldn't have looked as impressive.

 Right next door is poor Federal Hall, who needs a smaller banner to remind people that the establishment of the New York Customs House and then US Treasury on the former site of George Washington's inauguration is the real reason why New York City has dominated US finance for the life of our country.

 Federal Hall itself had few visitors and the basement vaults were absolutely empty

 Last year we did Liberty Island and this year we were determined to see Governor's Island. With rain in the forecast, the first ferry of the day had about 10 people on it.

 Which meant that hot chocolate from the desolate Starbuck's on the island was a perfect way to wait out the rain.

 The girl's were impressed with the bathroom truck

 And they had two-person bathrooms, too

 The Hills did provide a commanding view of the harbor and the most famous resident of Bedloe's Island

 We loved the modern playground

 but have noticed that fancy playgrounds are always made in Germany. Thank you, Richter Spielgerate, and thank you City of New York for agreeing that provision of play spaces is a social necessity.

 Oh yeah, and Governor's Island happens to be a National Monument

back near Wall Street, the Charging Bull was way bigger than I thought it would be. Of course bankers live in a culture where size matters... 

 quite possibly my favorite picture, ever, and we'll see how long the Fearless Girl is allowed to disgrace the Bull on the Bowling Green

Pigeon chasing

This year the big tadpoles couldn't be found

4th of July in DC

The day after school ended we kayaked around the Concord River

 

then Dave, Caroline, and Erin flew to Maryland to spend 2 weeks visiting sisters. At Boxwood Farm there is always great grilling

and while I worked during the day, Charlie and Erin delivered me lunch. (I actually read that 1884 1st edition of US Grant's memoirs. Quite a general was Grant and one of those great American stories of a kid from Ohio earning an education and rising to the highest levels)

We dog-sat for tenants of a house even older than Boxwood Farm. Sudley house dates from the 1720s and had huuuge fireplaces in the great hall and bedrooms. 

General Bobblehead George, you have come to the end of the road. You've seen your birthplace, Fort Necessity where you led your men into a massacre, the Cambridge common where you received command of the Continental Army, your winter headquarters at Morristown and Valley Forge, Yorktown, Federal Hall, the C&O canal, Fort Washington, and now your beloved home plantation of Mount Vernon.

All the cousins except Charlie made the trip

That is flax drying so its fibers can be harvested and spun into linen. Among the 3 natural fibers used for centuries in clothing, we'd seen cotton and wool demonstrations, but this was the first time seeing flax. It takes a lot of work to process the stalks into thread, but the interpreters who wore all-linen outfits loved the durability and softness.

Those are the fireworks for the DC celebration being loaded on a barge. I would guess that George's ghost approves of his docks use to commemorate an event from his lifetime.

And there is the original tomb and final resting place of GW

At Claire's we were treated to delicious meals and played many games

and the kids created a quest for me. In this one we had to direct the model to recreate famous paintings. Watch those arm and leg positions, Erin, you're a pre-Raphaelite.

The finale was a disarming of the "poisoned" soda bottle using Mentos

We knocked off the remaining unvisited NPS sites in DC. Here are the beautiful, ahem, Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens on the Anacostia River. At least they were very green.

and there are always new monuments going up. This is the Dwight D. Eisenhower memorial shoehorned next to the Dept of Education and across from the Erin Space Museum.

and when Tessie and Heather flew into DCA, why wouldn't we brave the heat and humidity to see the Jefferson Memorial?

Dinner at Jerry's house was much better

Katy had a bumper crop of honey from her bees. She's streamlined the harvesting operation, which entails cutting off the caps of the boxes, spinning out the honey, filtering it, and then pouring it into bottles to give to friends and family.