Fun at the McNulty's

Last Friday we went over to Cathy's house for a playdate. As usual, Caleb decided to dress up with the girls and we caught them in all their glory. Really, he makes a cute princess!!!!

Potter's pictures

Potter took some pictures over our weekend in Arlington. Here is a sampling:

Bill at his new house in Maryland. Dave spent a few days 'working' with Bill on the book and helping him move some furniture around.

A koi pond at the National Zoo

Some sort of pig at the National Zoo. He was pretty big!

All three kids in front of the tank with the huge fish. I took this for Potter.

In the Amazon exhibit, there is a room with animals and birds roaming free. The sign warns to stay at least 5 feet away from the monkeys. I guess they might fling poo at you if they feel threatened.

Turtles sunning themselves.

Prairie dogs, to you, until we meet again.......

Group shot of all of us at National Zoo. So glad that Potter remembers to use the time on his camera. Not sure why we took the picture in front of the police tape.....

Popsicles

Caleb and Molly got rocket pops. The pictures do not show just how red and blue they were. The blue was especially troubling.....it didn't come off until bathtime.

The Prairie dog song......

Wendy and Potter sang this crazy song many times over the weekend. They were right in front of the prairie dogs during this rendition. Sadly, I missed the first part of it.....

Seals, anteaters and bears oh my

Miscellaneous animals - we saw a bear who would not cooperate and come closer for a good picture, some seals who would not cooperate with Caleb's request to get in the water and swim, and an anteater who had a baby on her back and carried it all around. Given that it was 95 degrees that day and they are covered in fur, it made me sort of sick to look at. How do animals with fur not have heatstroke in the summer???

The rays

They had some of the biggest rays that we have ever seen. The kids were sad, though, that is wasn't a touch tank. We had done that at the aquarium in N.C., so they figured everything was fair game!!!

Big fish - big tank

The Amazon experience wowed the kids!! It is a huge building with lots of rainforesty stuff. (Once I download Potter's pictures, I'll have more to share, I was mostly trying to keep the kids all together!!) The favorite was this huge tank with fish that must have been longer than I am tall. Wendy found the name, but I have since forgotten it. They put these fishing lines in the water and attach whole heads of lettuce, zucchini, and yams to it. Then the fish come up and graze on it. There were also turtles and other smaller fish as well. We spent a long time looking at this tank.

Beauty parlor at the zoo

The National Zoo is so cool!! We have been several times, and you never do everything on each visit, so it is like going to a new zoo every time. This trip, we found a goat and donkey grooming station, where the kids can take rough brushes and give the animals lots of attention by brushing and/or petting them. They loved doing this!!! The animals are all so calm and sweet, there is even one goat (scroll down) who is leaning on another and seems to be grinning!!!

Kids with Claire

Very surprising that on this visit Claire was really very personable with the kids. I think they all got to pet her and Caleb fed her some treats. I picked her up twice, with minimal growling. We are growing on her!!! Kids loved making tents on mine and Wendy's chairs.

Design Star

When I visited Wendy in March, she was in the process of looking for some new furniture for her apartment in Arlington. On a whim, we went into an Ethan Allan and started perusing the dressers, chairs, and end tables. One of the sales associates came up and asked if we needed some help (which we were grateful for) and so then we ended up looking at fabric for chairs and sofas, as well as a bunch of accessories for the bedroom. As Wendy and I watch a lot (and I mean a lot) of HGTV, we offhandedly mentioned this to the young woman who was helping us and we joked about our great gift for design (ha ha). She looked at us very hesitantly and then said, 'well, I am on the next 'Design Star' series for HGTV and may get my own show!' We instantly freaked out!! Tashica (if you are watching this series, you know her already) told us how she had already met the likes of Vern Yip during her initial interview and a lot of other HGTV personalities. SO........I just went down this past weekend to visit Wendy and we happened to be at a toy store one block away from the Ethan Allan where Tashica works; I insisted that we go to see if she was there and she was!!!!!! Being the blogger that I am, I had my camera with me and the young man working there with her (I am so sorry that I don't remember his name) took a picture of all of us with Tashica!!!!!! It was so amazing to see her again, and then we watched the kitchen renovation episode on Sunday night. Please, please, to to HGTV and vote for her!!!!!! You can vote up to 10 times a day, and at last count, she was in second place!!!!!!

Baby blue jay

On Friday, Potter spotted a little baby blue jay who had somehow fallen from his nest and gotten separated from his parents. We were able to get very close to him, but then went back up to the deck and the parents came to feed him some worms (?) and other yummy bird stuff. We saw him on and off the entire afternoon, but then were out of town. We hope that one of the nasty neighborhood cats didn't have him for dinner.

Blueberry pickin'

On Sunday afternoon, we went blueberry picking at Frosty Mountain Blueberry Farm in Whitney Point. Usually, we go to Green Brothers in Binghamton near the airport, but they were closed on Sunday to recover from the massive amounts of people they had there on Saturday for the Berry Fest, and they said they needed a day of rest and sun for the berries to ripen. Whatever. I found this place online, they were open, so we packed up and headed over there. Boy, were we not disappointed!! It is a husband and wife who live on the property, they have regular jobs, but they also have a really fairly decent sized orchard of blueberry bushes. We picked and picked and picked for probably close to an hour. Came home with enough berries to last a while. I made a pie, set some aside for Granddad to take home, set some aside for us to eat, and froze the rest, which accounted for over 5 quarts of berries!! Some of these were the biggest berries I have ever seen! I know that we will be back there again this season; the owner said they will be picking until early to mid September. Yay us!!!

Final goodbyes......

Over the weekend, we went to clean out Dave's truck and say our last goodbyes. We all have fond memories of the truck, which we've had for about 8 years now. It is the only car that the kids remember Dave driving. It has such a distinctive engine sound, we could hear Dave coming home once he turned the corner up the street. His new car may not have such a pitch that he might start sneaking up on us. We'll miss you Green Monster!!!

Molly's new tea set

Granddad and Molly opened the box containing her new tea set. There is something to note about this, because Granddad has given Molly REAL china to use for playing. There are little demi-tasse cups, saucers, and butter pat plates. He says that it is ok if one of them (or many) get broken, they are just for her to have fun with. Aaaahhhhhhhhh, we'll see how long some of them last!!!