Grandma and Grandpa Visit - Part 1 - The Cherry Blossoms

Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit to coincide with the girls' Spring Break from school. Grandma has always wanted to come to DC to see the famous cherry blossoms, so our initial hope was that this visit would work out and the trees would be in peak bloom while they were here. Unfortunately, our incredibly warm winter (thanks, climate change) put the famous yoshino cherry trees on track for one of their earliest peak blooms in 20 years. Then, just when the buds were in their most fragile state, we had our snowfall in March that killed off about half of the flower buds. The rest of the trees still bloomed, but because of everything we were reading, we didn't even make the trip down as a family to see them.

Fortunately, the kwanzan cherry trees bloom about two weeks after the yoshinos. While the yoshino trees are far more numerous and are in the prime photo spots to get monuments in the background, the kwanzan trees in my opinion have prettier blossoms in and of themselves. Each mature blossom is about two inches in diameter and is packed with soft pink petals. If popcorn pops on apricot trees, like the Primary song says, popcorn balls pop on kwanzan cherry trees.

Peak bloom of the kwanzan cherry trees happened the day Grandma and Grandpa arrived, so the day after they arrived, we went down to DC to see them. Grandma can now cross that off seeing the DC cherry blossoms from her bucket list (though she probably should come for the yoshinos just to get a taste for the craziness). One huge benefit of going down for the kwanzan trees is the lack of crowds - we had basically any parking space we wanted, and as we walked toward the Tidal Basin from our home base on Haines Point where most of the kwanzan trees were, Tanja kept moving the car so it wouldn't be so far to walk back.

Here are the kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Derek was having a blast.

Especially when he got to walk and swing.

See how big these blossoms are?

The girls liked climbing the trees.

 

Derek was upset he didn't get to climb the trees too, until he got his turn and I put him up there. See how big his grin his? He was very happy to be included in the fun.  You can also see the cut on his forehead that he got at a birthday party a few weeks ago.  It is slowly looking better and healing, so hopefully he will not have a permanent scar.

We got a nice family picture too.

Our kids are cute.

I like this picture of Tanja.

The girls used to let me toss them up in the air for pictures like this. Guess now it is Derek's turn.

At the FDR Memorial, the kids had a chance to climb around some of the large blocks that are part of the memorial. It was a good way to finish the trip before our drive back home.

We will post more pictures of Grandma and Grandpa's visit later.