Don't call it a comeback

Our touristy trips to DC have resumed after a short (understandable) hiatus. We realized the other day that we only have a max of four weekends left before we move (including this one), since we'll be gone for two weekends in July. So that prompted us to check a few more things off our to-see list.

First up, a walk down memory lane in Arlington. I used to work right by the Courthouse Metro stop, so we drove by and took a picture of my building (I'll spare you those pictures). Then we swung by the Iwo Jima memorial because in all our years here we've never taken a picture in front of it. The guy who offered to take our picture ended up being from Texas (a UNT grad, Claudia!) and a Pearl Jam fan- turns out we were at the same show in Dallas in 2003. Small world. BTW, Sadie was asleep in the car 20 feet away when we took this picture, hence why it's just the three of us.

Next we drove into DC and hit up the U.S. Botanical Gardens. I'm not sure what I expected it to be like, but we were very pleasantly surprised. The outside gardens were beautiful and inside the conservatory was amazing. Ethan LOVED running around all the plants, and especially enjoyed all the water fountains.

The First Ladies Garden

The Children's Garden
Inside the Conservatory
After the gardens, we walked over to the Library of Congress. We took a picture in front of the Capitol building on the way but used a disposable camera we're trying to finish, so those pictures will have to wait. Anyway, the LOC is so cool. You can't go inside the reading room without a membership card, but there were a few other rooms we were allowed into, and of course the Great Hall is gorgeous.

After the LOC, we walked over to the Museum of the American Indian to have lunch in their awesome cafeteria (and we parked right by it). Ethan enjoyed the break and Sadie was happy to get out of her car seat for a while and have a snack. When everyone was done eating, we packed into the car and drove to the National Arboretum. You have to go through a scary part of town to get to it (it's over kind of by Gallaudet, off of New York Ave) but it was fine once we got there. We didn't spend a ton of time there, but we stopped at the Capital Columns and took a picture (again, with the disposable camera). When we were done there, it was off to Maryland to visit Fort Washington.

Unfortunately for us, we got a flat tire on the way there. We pulled onto a side street just a few miles away from the fort and the tire was toast (upon closer inspection we found a giant screw wedged in the tread). There was a ton of junk piled on top of the spare in the trunk, so we unloaded everything onto the street, then had a bit of a hard time releasing the jack. Also by this time Paul and I both had horrible blisters covering our feet, so I was trudging around through the mud barefoot. Nice. Paul is a pro at changing tires so he was fine doing everything by himself. Thank goodness, because about halfway through the pit stop, Ethan announced from the car "I'm going pee pee!" Crap!!! We were in this cute little residential neighborhood, across from some guy's house (who had come out to ask if we needed help with the tire), no bathroom in sight. So I took him behind a tree and let it loose. At least it's easier with a boy. After that we piled back in the car and went to the fort. It was really cool! Ethan had a blast running around the grounds, pretending to shoot the cannons at pirates passing by on the Potomac.

We found these random hats in the guard room at the fort. Good times. Also notice I'm wearing Paul's shoes.I have now ditched the shoes altogether, in favor of a hippie look.

We were pretty exhausted after the fort. It was really hot and humid today, so all that walking made us thirsty and grumpy. So we drove up to visit our old haunts in Alexandria. That was CRAZY. It was just such a trip seeing our old apartment complex, my old Metro stop, etc. We had dinner at our favorite Thai place in Old Town, then let Ethan play in the fountain in front of City Hall.

It was a great day, but now we're all sweaty and wiped out. Both the kids passed out almost as soon as we got home. I think it's my turn now...

Lucasfilm: Promoting Human Sacrifice through Children's Toys

We watched an abbreviated version of Temple of Doom tonight. Afterwards, we were happy to find out that the good folks at Hasbro and Lucasfilm have produced several toys of Mola Ram over the years.


Remember Mola Ram? He amassed an army of zombified soldiers to help him reach into people's chests and pull out their hearts. As a night gig, he forced legions of local children to work in his underground mine - all so he can locate some magic rocks.

Well, after that ringing endorsement, I imagine you're thinking how can I get an individual like this more involved in my family life, right? Well, in pursuit of the almighty dollar, billionaire George Lucas' Lucasfilm solved this problem for us. Mola Ram has been produced in several child-friendly formats. The first (above) was as an action figure after Temple of Doom's 1984 release.

This summer brought us several additional Mola Ram themed products at your local toy store. The figure above (along with one of his entranced servants) is especially "appropriate" for young ones.

The figure above is what made Sarah force me to write this post (seriously, she did. She said that if I didn't, she'd go all Mola Ram-style on me). It is called a Mighty Mugg and, in this incarnation, Mola Ram looks especially happy to be holding a human heart - exactly the type of joy Sarah and I hope Ethan and Sadie will one day achieve. Well done, George. You've done it again.

P.S. Mr. Lucas is in DC this evening. He testified before the House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee on the importance of broadband access in public schools (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6572807.html?industryid=47174). Recommend he suggest that each school age child also receive a Mola Ram toy. Seems only fair.

Three months of adorableness

Today is the 24th, which means it's time for another installment of "Look at How Cute Sadie Is This Month." Ain't nepotism grand?

Well, we're still head over heels for our little girl. Her latest act of cuteness is giggling, which is about the most precious noise ever. She doesn't laugh all that frequently, but when she does it is soooooo cute. She is particularly ticklish under her chin and thinks it's hilarious when you put her feet in her mouth, or push her legs down and out at the hip joint. Who knew.

So here are this month's pictures. Enjoy!

This is her newest trick- pulling her dress up over her face. She was doing it all through church on Sunday.


I stole this idea from another friend- put baby next to a stuffed animal each month to see how much she's grown. Here's Sadie with Times Square Bear in June:
And here she is with TSB in May (notice how Ethan won't let Teddy out of his sight in either picture):
I love the look of surprise on her face in this shot


Here's the best scowl I could get out of her. Compare this to...Ethan at three months: And here's Ethan from yesterday. Every time I'd take a picture of Sadie he'd want me to take one of him too.
Practicing his sweet kung fu moves

Um... thanks?

About a week ago, Paul went up to NYC for business for a few days. I always hate when he's gone because a) I miss him, and b) I go batty with the kids and no break (I know, some of you have it much worse than I, and it's only going to get worse when he goes back to school. But I digress...). So in an attempt to entertain Ethan we all headed over to Barnes & Noble to look at the books and play with the trains. I put Sadie in this adorable sun hat that Claudia handed down from her girls:

We got there and headed straight for the children's section in the back. Ethan, being his usual lively self, was running all over the place, super excited to look at the Scooby Doo books. He blew past some other young kid to get to the SD books, and the kid's mom noticed me walking behind with the stroller. She got her kid's attention and said "Look (insert name here), it's a little baby! Oh, he's so cute!"

Uhhh.... excuse me???

Does my baby girl really look like a boy??? I realize she was wearing a red shirt and denim shorts, but the shirt had ruffles on it and the hat is pink striped! Come on, lady!

So, what do you say to that? I just smiled, said "thanks" and kept going. I think that's probably the best response, but part of me really wanted to embarrass this woman by making some passive aggressive comment like "Thank you, SHE is a great little GIRL!" But I didn't. Yay me.

Our new digs

So, I think we decided on our housing in New Hampshire. (thanks for everyone's input, BTW!) We found this great 3BR/2BA house in West Lebanon, which is about 3 miles from the Dartmouth campus. I'm so excited for the kids to have their own rooms (and not be sleeping in ours!!!). And there's a basement for storage, plus a patio off the kitchen and a cute porch in the front. All new windows, new kitchen appliances, new washer/dryer, very nice. All told it's about 1350 square feet of living space- much better than the 885 into which we are currently crammed. There's even an extra room we will use as an office for Paul. Even Jabba will have a playmate next door- a pug named Chelsea.

We are sad to be moving away from all our friends. REALLY sad. But at least we have a nice place to look forward to.

the front of the house

the living room, as seen from the dining room

the dining/living room again the kitchenthe office
the downstairs bathroom
bedroom #1

bedroom #2
bedroom #3the washer and dryer (in the basement)

Who's gonna be first to come visit us??

Random cuteness of the day

Is this not the cutest little dress? My mom got it for Sadie before she was born and I've just been waiting for her to fit into it. Still a little big, but that just means she'll be able to wear it for a while! Just had to share!

Jabba: The $15K Dog??

Paul and I have been wrestling with this for weeks now so I thought I would pose the question to the universe, if you will.

We are currently in the process of finding a place to live up in New Hampshire. Dartmouth has great student housing- very nice, brand new townhouses that are fairly close to campus (called Sachem Village). The problem arises when we consider the Jabba factor. The only houses in Sachem that allow dogs are only two bedrooms, one bathroom- 1,000 square feet, no attic, only two stories (so no playroom or anything like that). It's basically what we have now. They are affordable (about $1200/mo and that includes hot water and heat, we think), and we'd be in a great community with all the other graduate students and their families.

The alternative is to find a private house to rent either in Hanover or a neighboring town. Obviously that would mean more space, Ethan and Sadie would have their own rooms (or at least a separate playroom where Ethan could go when Sadie's asleep), we'd probably have a garage, mudroom, etc. But, it is considerably more expensive. For example, there's a 3BR/2BA house we're looking at right now that is $1750/mo, no utilities included (aside from lawn care, snow removal).

Now, we wouldn't even be considering a private house if we didn't have Jabba. We'd just take a 3BR place in Sachem and be done with it. But that isn't an option since the 3BR places don't allow pets. SO...

I have logical arguments for both alternatives and I just don't know what to do. If Paul wasn't going back to school, we wouldn't even be considering a bigger place because we just couldn't afford it. So we'd have to make this 2BR/1BA townhouse work. But, the Sachem townhouse doesn't have an attic, and we have A LOT of crap in our attic and I have no clue what we will do with it all if we move to Sachem. And it's just small when you have two kids and a dog.

A big place would be AWESOME since I already feel like we're on top of each other here in our townhouse. We'd have plenty of room to store all our stuff, Ethan and Sadie would have separate rooms and/or a playroom, Paul would have a place to study, we'd have a garage which would come in super handy in the winter. BUT- do we want to pay an extra $650/mo with *borrowed* money just so we can have a bigger, more comfortable place? That comes to something like $13K over the course of two years, which of course would end up costing more in the end because of interest. And with the new rules concerning student loans, we have to pay them off within ten years, which means a pretty steep payment every month post-graduation. And that means less money to put toward a new house wherever we end up. All this because of the stupid dog!

ACK!!! I hate stressing about money! Someone please give me some guidance!!!!!

Ethan's Sunbeam Class Picture

We're so proud.

The New Hampshire Mission Zones, Wards and Branches

This is where Lauren will spend the next eighteen months.

Aunt Lauren's Visit

One note: we used a disposable camera to take quite a few pictures of the week Lauren spent with us. We'll be sure to post those once we get the film developed.