food, lots of food

we've been getting settled in around here, making new best friends (including my aunt and uncle "Scott" and "Seen-ta" i.e. Cynthia), but especially my 13-year-old cousin, Avery. He would marry her if we didn't know any better.

checking out the totally unimpressive White House (and apparently its backside, oops!)

trying lots of new food (Founding Farmers) If fries and ketchup could subsist a toddler without nagging my conscience, I'd do it. I don't even care.

exploring the Potomac River from the Francis Scott Key Bridge

watching kayakers, paddleboarders, and boaters

exploring the cobblestone streets and colonial houses of Georgetown with all the preppy hipsters starting school at Georgetown the next week. oh. and Georgetown cupcakes. better than Sprinkles.

how to get what you want: run up to Daddy whining and screeching, confuse everyone as to what you want, finally yell "couch! couch!" as you hit his leg over and over and push him off, and finally, yank the object of desire out of his hands. winning.

Virginia has some amazing parks. We've had fun getting some exercise and walking to them, spending time with the other moms, a surprising amount of dads, and many nannies there. When the carousel ride was over, Parker held on for dear life to the pole and wouldn't let go. I finally had to pry his tiny, little hands off, which resulted in a melt down on the floor...something we are quite used to these days. Did I mention that he's two? Yeah, he's definitely two.

He's pretty dang cute though, and learning so much, its incredible. He knows a lot of his teens but jumbles them all up when counting. He counts as he goes up and down steps, but usually something along the lines of "eleben, twel, sisteen, eighteen". One of his favorite things to do is pray. When we went to New York a couple weekends ago and my aunt and uncle watched him, they said they had made him a sandwich and after a bite or two noticed he got super frustrated and they couldn't figure out why. He threw his sandwich down and yelled, "Fah-der! Fah-der!" while folding his arms. They realized he wanted to pray, so they all prayed, and he happily went on eating his sandwich. Another time during church, it was time for the closing prayer while he had been playing with one of his trucks. So he immediately snapped his head down and closed one eye while the other eye was squinting open, folded his left arm across his body, and stuck his right arm out to keep driving his truck back and forth along the pew. Steve and I almost couldn't stiffle the giggles and just about lost it.

This girl and I have been friends for 14 years, and I got to see her try on her beautiful wedding dress as she gets married next week. I love the feeling you get being around old friends like that, it's so easy. Love you Bee!

You can't see any, but this park has a ton of those Fisher Price toddler-size cars as well as bikes, tricycles, big trucks and cars for kids to play with that everyone leaves there. It also has a little sand-based toddler size playground for the younger ones. Just dancin to the music, another one of his faves to do while we drive.

We ventured to DC (15 minutes away) to get patriotic and eat some Shake Shack. You guys. Best burger and best fries I've ever had in my whole entire life. Steve mumbled something along those same lines while his eyes rolled into the back of his head a time or two as well.

We walked around the National Mall a bit (the mile-ish-long strip of land/park between the monuments) and saw the Washington monument, which is under construction after damage from an earthquake and hurricane out here a couple years ago. I had no idea.... We also saw the WWII memorial, which I really loved as we were able to take a minute to reflect on what that really meant for our country and the sacrifices that were made. We still have lots more to see...

This weekend we went to The National Zoo. I feel like Parker is still a little young for the zoo, but he was quite partial to the big fish ("whoah cool!"), little fish, and then at the end the tiger ("rawr!"). A lot of the animals had big, colored balls in their cages, and if this was the case, he was more concerned with those. 

We get two weekend days to play a week because Steve only has clinic 4 days a week due to the sequestration (the government only pays optometrists at Walter Reed to work 4 days a week), which has been great! Actually, semi-great, because Steve has turned into such an old man, falling asleep at 8pm on the couch because his days are long. He gets up about 3 out of the 4 days he works at 530 to get ready and bike 10 miles to work, then bike 10 miles back. He's already getting faster and more used to it, but he was pretty sore at first (he hasn't biked that long in years!). He's needed a break a day or so out of the week, so I take him in the morning (while Parker's still sleeping at home) then he takes the train home because I am not about to drive in rush hour on these slow speed limit-driving roads and highways! That's probably one of my only complaints about it here, the freeway speed limits are 55 or 65 mph, and a lot of the suburb roads are 35 mph and TWO LANES. A lot of the intersections are twisted and crazy, you'll be driving down one road and there will be an intersecting road with the same name as the road you're driving on, and the stoplights are incredibly long. Ok that's all. Other than that, it really is beautiful, and I can't wait for fall to really get here! We visited the farmer's market this Saturday morning, the air was crisp and the sun was out. It was a beautiful day.

Especially the freshly-made doughnuts.

I'm still baking a baby in there. My belly actually covers my shoes, I had to bend over and stick my right leg out a bit so you could see that I had somewhere down there. I'll be 7 months along this next week, sleep is getting more and more scarce to come by, my toes are getting harder to reach, and Parker's constant request to "sih lap" is getting more and more difficult. I'm still waiting for insurance to go through, so I haven't been to the doctor in about 7 weeks, but she's kicking and rolling with the punches in there. Steve and I realized we haven't really thought about this baby as much as we did Parker. It doesn't feel real, and it doesn't feel like there will actually be a human coming into our family at the end of this; like I won't be eternally pregnant. What a concept. We have 3 months to make this real in our heads, because baby girl is coming! We're both so excited to meet this little one as we wonder what she'll be like. A girl!