Getting in our steps

Ian is out this week doing what we lovingly call "Crash Bang."  It has some official title but "Crash Bang" is way cooler.  He learned how to strap on tourniquets, crash cars, avoid getting shot... you know, the important stuff when traveling around the world to all the fun spots.

So that left the rest of us without a car, which means we've been doing a lot of walking.  And walking = steps.  Lots of steps. My legs and feet hurt. And the sweat, so much sweat, I better be oozing out so many toxins... 

10 July-13,591 Ian and Jonathon went off to their respective camps, and we wandered the neighborhood and over to the Marine Corps Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. 

11 July-10,477 We went to Roosevelt Island on Monday, you saw that. 

12 July-16,260 Tuesday we went to Georgetown to walk around M Street and along the Potomac. Gotta love the hiking trails all over, especially the ones by the canal.

You know it...

When everyone is moving and you try to catch 'em all.

Nicholas should probably wear pants.

Katherine joined us for dinner at Il Radicchio.  There has been a lot of Pokemon Go hunting as well.  Nicholas goes out several times a day to get in his distance to hatch new ones, and to capture ones popping up in parks and... yeah, I'm even boring myself, sorry. But he's having fun and off the laptop, so it's all good.

13 July-13,982  Wednesday we walked to Ballston to meet up with Katherine, see a movie, walk the hockey summer camp, and get some cooler exercise in at Kettler Iceplex.  We ate at Chipotle.  I. Don't. Like. Mexican. Food.

Dorks.

14 July-11,821 Today Becca and I walked through Rosslyn, across the Key Bridge, through Georgetown, and to the Kennedy Center.

Bright red after an hour walk in 99F. Awesome.

The show was great. I find one of the best parts is reading the Playbill to see where they all came from, the tiny glance into the stories behind the actors. The stage for this traveling show is pretty awesome, with bits of "glass" (clear gel bits) showering down with the chandelier crash, pyrotechnics and all. At one point I recall thinking "fire on stage, that's pretty bold."  Since our "Christine" played by Julia Udine didn't finish our show after Act II Scene 6, and it appeared that one of the fire bursts may have caught her, fire may not be a good thing on stage. Her understudy stepped in and we didn't see Udine at curtain call, so... here's hoping that she is fine.

Remember how I said that everyone is either in the DC area or coming through the DC area? A friend of ours from our time in the Philippines posted a photo of her family at today's matinee. It's been 13 years since I've seen her, and her daughter and my boys were in PreK together at AmeriKids. Ian will be meeting with her husband next week during consultations. Yeah, small world but especially small in the DC Metro area.

Ian returns tomorrow, it'll be nice to have him back! I've made no plans for the weekend, so here's hoping he has some ideas!

So I was thinking about the movies we've seen on this vacation. "Free State of Jones" was pretty good. Based on a true story, I want to read a book on it to get more of the real background. "Finding Dory" was very cute, yet as much as I wanted to love it, it did feel a bit of a "Finding Nemo" repeat. "Secret Life of Pets" I really wanted to like, and it too was cute, but... eh.  I'm looking forward to "Storks" and of course "Star Trek: Beyond," "Rogue One," and "Miss Peregrine." I might even see "Nerve" and "Bad Moms."

Books I've read this year have varied between a lot of YA and some longer novels. If you enjoy SciFi, I recommend the Red Rising trilogy by Brown, and don't recommend Seveneves by Stephenson. If you like dystopian future with vampire... things... I recommend The Passage trilogy by Cronin. I do not recommend The Maltese Falcon, sorry classic noir fans. Now I'm on to The Man in the High Castle by Dick, and since I've seen the first season (thank you Amazon!) I'm glad to get into the details and backgrounds. 

It's really time for a non-fiction book and I think the Hamilton biography by Chernow fits the bill.

Park Hike

Today we ventured over to Teddy Roosevelt Island. I'm sure there's an official name for it, but really it's just an island in the Potomac River with walking paths.

Wednesday, to Georgetown?

Very few Pokes to be had. One gym taken over.

Green is nice.  So nice.  It smells nice and looks nice and if it wasn't so sticky would feel nice too.

One day of Wandering DC

A day last week Ian had to get his new badge and submit our passports for Schengen visas. Not knowing how long that would take, but knowing it would take at least several hours, Becca and I tagged along downtown and walked where the streets took us.  Starting at Main State...

We wandered through a tiny White House museum about "The President's Neighborhood" and then of course had to stop and see the White House itself.

As we continued to look for an indoor place to cool off from the heat, we wandered past the National Museum of Women in the Arts with a special exhibit...

Unlike most of the popular museums, this was one we could see in its entirety in a couple hours.

Certain pieces drew a thumbs up from Rebecca.  Some, a thumbs down. She had a snapchat story running.

An enchanting love story between a banana and a pear.

Yes, I had some thumbs up as well.

From the special exhibit there were so many brilliant stories being told but this one really struck a chord...

So many stories. I could have photographed almost every piece.

Instead we continued our walk and ended up getting some lunch.

Which happened to be right next to the Portrait Gallery and Museum of American Art. We ran out of time, but we are so going back there.

We looked for Stephen Colbert.
He came down in April. Bummer.

A hot day with a lot of walking, but a great one with my "baby" girl.

There's other stuff, but first... settled in

We've moved into our TDY housing.  While Ian is off doing his thing, and Jonathon is now off at summer camp...

Getting geared up and excited for camp!!

...we spent a couple hours wandering around the neighborhood.

Actually stopped at the Dark Star park looking for a geocache.

Didn't find it. *sad face*

And kept walking...

And kept walking...

It's an otter, right?

And kept walking...

Civil War - the tree has grown right into it.

Rows and rows of Civil War dead.

Robert Todd Lincoln.

The dead from Kenya and Tanzania.

And then we walked back.

Yes, Nicholas was catching Pokees all along the way, but the game has a couple things going for it - there's no running around and there are points of interest marked all along the way.  It's a faze, at least until they take the whole thing down, fix it, and get it going again.

At least that's what the boys tell me.

Rekindling

The past week we stayed with my parents and were able to meet up with loads of friends who happen to be living in NoVA or just passing through.  We were out every night, driving around Virginia and eating way too much.

4th of July sparklers with Seilings and Gormans.

Foster's Grille and Starbucks with the Hay-Davenports, 8 July.

Johnsons and Schive-Papenfuss and an al fresco meal, 7 July.

A crew from MU at Whitlow's on Wilson, 5 July.

Underwood-Wolfram for Pupatella pizza, 5 July.

The only ones we didn't get a photo with were the Rosenbergers, great people from our time in Amman. The Foreign Service is a small group, and just about everyone comes through the DC area at some point.  It just so happens that this summer there really are a ton of people here at precisely this moment, so it's been a blast visiting with them.