Grandma and Grandpa Visit

Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit at the start of the month and the kids loved having them here (plus it gave us some built-in babysitters so Tanja and I could go out on a couple dates to get restaurant meals on our own). Grandma brought lots of crafts to work on; she helped Karina and Lydia make friendship bracelets.

I think this picture was taken after Grandpa was playing Itsy Bitsy Spider with Derek. You can still see his hands in position.

Grandpa's a lot of fun to be around.

Derek has an excellent sense of fashion.

Another of the craft projects were Easter houses. Grandma brought some cookie cutter shapes and some decorating supplies and the kids all made Easter houses with her (like gingerbread houses except with sugar cookie type walls) and then decorated them.

Here they are proudly showing off their finished products.

As luck would have it, the DC cherry blossoms waited for peak bloom until their visit. Unfortunately, most of the time they were here, the temperatures were a little cold. We braved them, bundled up, and headed down to DC to walk around the Tidal Basin and see the cherry blossoms with other brave souls. The colder weather kept the crowds at bay in the morning at least, but then we got cold, so went to the Smithsonian American History Museum to warm up a bit before coming out to slightly warmer temperatures to finish off the day.

Here's the Jefferson Memorial as we started our morning.

And here are some of the pictures from the start of our walk around the Tidal Basin.

After the museum, we came out and went past the Enid Haupt Garden outside the Smithsonian castle. The magnolias there are beautiful, though they typically bloom a week or two before the Yoshino cherry trees, so they were not as pretty as they would have been if we were there a week or two earlier.  I think next year, we may try to go there instead of battling the crowds for cherry blossoms.

Then it was time to make our way back to the car. I thought this cherry tree looked cool for a picture with the girls sitting on it.

And a few more pictures of cherry blossoms on the way back to the car.

In our continuing efforts to make our backyard one of the cool places in the neighborhood for kids to play, we got another swing to hang under our deck. It is one of those bench style swings that can seat two kids at once. Lydia and Derek were excited to take it on its maiden voyage.

It's even strong enough to hold Tanja or me (though I certainly wouldn't call it a comfortable fit). The chains it came with weren't long enough, so these pictures were taken before we added 1.5 feet to each chain.

Derek had fun relaxing on our tree swing too.

We also went on our latest favorite hike in Patapsco State Park on the Cascade Falls trail (regular readers of the blog will likely recognize the location from previous posts). I'm very proud of our kids and how good they are getting at hiking since it is an activity that both Tanja and I enjoy. I look forward to many more family hikes in the future.

Lydia and Derek liked splashing in the stream.

Here we are at the waterfall.

Back at home before it was time to make the airport run, the kids loved playing around in their boxes. Simple pleasures are the best kind.

Thanks for coming, Grandma and Grandpa! We look forward to the next time we will see you!