National Zoo

I had asked Patrick back in January if we could try to fit in a few more DC excursions before we moved from Northern Virginia. He and I made it to a jazz performance at the Kennedy Center (thanks Martha & Jim for watching Amelia!), but we were running out of days to go to the zoo, particularly as its been cold and rainy most of April. Thankfully, our very last Saturday ended up being a gorgeous day so off we went!

My friend Gabi came along for the morning also. By the end of the day, Amelia was calling her "abi" and sharing her popcorn with her.  Here we are all watching the lions.

She doesn't last for long on Daddy's shoulders, but he keeps trying!

Farm animal area

Her favorite part was by far the aquariums. She kept signing 'fish' and pointing. I think it's the proximity that makes it for her at this point.

We did a lot of elephant noises and signing during our various elephant viewings.

There is a panda back there.

It was a great day! When Amelia woke up from her nap, she found this belated Christmas gift from Miss Gabi (she had it then but we hadn't been able to get together and transfer it to Amelia until now). We didn't even have to tell Amelia what to do, she just hopped on and started rocking and neighing and saying "abi".

Some asked for glasses while playing with playdough.

Enjoying breakfast with Daddy in between packing days.

A Week with Grammie

While we were gone, Grammie came to spend the week with Amelia. Pappy flew up for a few days and they all had so much fun together. They took a lot of photos so we could see what they were up to.

Easter Morning

Amelia does love her necklaces and she's particularly good about sharing them.

They visited her great grandma and great grandpa.

They're playing some kind of game where they put the dominoes and different parts of their bodies.

They took a trip to the Children's Museum at the National Harbor

She's winking here - it's a new skill

And they did projects. So many lovely projects.

Making birdseed feeders

 

A little suncatcher

Working on beading onto pipe cleaners

Amelia's first exposure to glue. Not her first exposure to fruit loops.

Working on her colors

We came home to this display of her projects.

and there was plenty of sillyness

Grammie invented a new game where they roll balls of yarn down the banister (from the lowest steps).

A visit to a local farm where apparently Amelia went gaga over the tractors but was ambivalent over the animals.

The sweet sign welcoming us when we got home.

This was my first extended time away from Amelia, and I will admit, she seemed to grow up so much in just 7 days. She has all kinds of new words, new songs, points to some Bible characters now and says "eve" "adam" etc. Learned to skip (added to her hopping repertoire) and random other things that I catch myself saying "when did you learn that??"  But I'm particularly grateful that she didn't seem to have any separation problems and slept amazingly well for Grammie. Since they've left, she asks about them about 5 times every hour; it's good to know she didn't miss us too much. :)

Our big kid

Costa Rica

When Patrick took on the Wyoming assignment, he quickly decided that he wanted a trip 'somewhere warm' when he finished up, with the plan to burn as many airline and hotel points as possible (he'd accumulated a lot living there for half a month for 9 months!) While neither one of us are beach bums, we decided to go to a Hilton resort in Costa Rica and have zero regrets about the decision. 

A view of the resort from the water; our room is at the top of the hill on the left of the photo.

View from our room - nice job Patrick!

We spent 5 glorious kid-free days in 95+ degree weather (we had snow flurries in VA the week before) with lovely ocean breezes, napping whenever we wanted, getting massages and reading. Reading a lot.

 

We read so much that we each finished the same 900 page book in addition to other books. And Patrick is not the fastest reader.

We did mostly avoid the direct sun, preferring the shady cabanas. But the resort was really beautiful and it was hard to pry ourselves away from being bums to actually get up and do anything touristy.

We took a half day river tour in the Palo Verde National Forest.  

The point of the tour was to get animal sight-seeing, and we did!

Howler monkeys in the trees

We lost count of the number of iguanas

I can't figure out how to zoom into this for the blog, but there's a crocodile in the center of the photo with its head in the leaves.

Highlight - eight white-faced monkeys playing at the water's edge, just a few feet from our boat.

The tour stopped at this hacienda near the national park that had a neat cacti garden. 

And awesome wood furniture

We also did a sunset cruise one evening. Patrick was showing his Austin, TX pride.

Not advertised perk - pod of 3 dolphins swam along our boat for a bit. We also had a glimpse of a large sea turtle.

We're thankful for time together to relax and refocus on ourselves in the middle of this crazy move! And the fact that it was free except for the tours made it even better!