Our play-date with Elizabeth, Robert, Colleen

While friends Patrick and Cate Coleman are attending to the final details of packing up their home in Virginia and making their final road trip to Minnesota, their children are hanging out here with Nonna and Da Coleman. We thought we would stop by this evening and get the five kids together for a play-date and provide perhaps a little reprieve for the grandparents.

We got to the elder Colemans' home a little after 7:00. The kids were really happy to see each other. It's been only a few months since they were last together, so no one forgot who anyone was. For our time together, we decided to walk down to the lake to feed a couple of bags' worth of bread Nonna gave us. Elizabeth and I talked all the way to the lake. She was telling me about the book she got at the library this morning. She is about halfway done already. I was so impressed. Robert and Cate ran all the way to the lake together. Max and Colleen stayed more or less with Kyle.

Once at the lake, it didn't take long for all the bread to disappear. All of the kids were giggling and laughing, bright-eyed watching the fish jump out of the water and the ducks fighting for the crumbs.After the last crumbs were done, we walked up to the park. Everyone played really nicely together. Obviously, they didn't want to leave when it was time.

Robert was running down the hill and stumbled slightly. He got up and brushed himself off. No blood, no scuffs, no worries. I gave him a little hug and then he wanted to hold my hand for a little bit. Colleen wanted to be carried, so I got her up on my shoulders. Max got envious and so he went up on Kyle's shoulders. Eventually Robert caught up with Cate and, same as before, ran ahead of us. As you can imagine, they were both disappointed when we denied them a trolley ride.

Once back at Nonna and Da's house, Nonna served ice cream and some interesting "lace" cookies she made. They were really good! We visited for a while--until about 8:40 and then we took off.

I know at one point one of the Coleman kids were sad that we were leaving and said, "don't go!" But Nonna replied, "It's okay. You'll play with them again. This will be forever!"

Amen to that!

We've been busy!

Friday night, July 25: Dance like you've never danced before
I got together with my girlfriend Shayna to see her husband's band, Series 5, and we danced all night long. I highly promote seeing this band. This photo was taken at the end of a very long night of dancing. Not drinking. Just dancing.

Saturday, July 26th: Downtown and a walk to the Lake
Kyle had to get a haircut downtown, so we all went. The kids had a snack while we waited, then we all enjoyed lunch and a bit of shopping at Macy's. Cool stuffed animals in the children's department.

yummy cookie

Is that a rat in Cate's hands?

After dinner, we went down to the lake to check out the ducks and walk on the dock...

Kyle giving Max a hand at the dock

Sunday, July 27th: Iverson Baby Baptism and a Visit with the Colemans
Sunday was a Godparents' extravaganza. The newest member of the Iverson clan, our nephew Howard Michael Iverson, was baptized at Mass. Kyle and I, along with oldest nephew Jack, are the honored Godparents. A luncheon was hosted by my parents at church.

Only my mother would arrange the meat so perfectly...

cousin Charlie and Max

Cate and cousin Nick

I can't resist holding a baby

Later on, I bopped over to Da and Nonna (Patrick and Donna) Coleman's house for a short visit and welcomed Cate, Elizabeth, Robert and Colleen Coleman as they begin a new adventure by moving from VA to live in MN. It was good to see all of them and we look forward to more fun in the future.

my goddaughter Colleen with her Pa (great-grandpa)

Time with family and friends, what could be better?

Washington DC Day 4: April 14, 2008

Alright...time to hasten this thing up. I've been reading the vacation summary and it's really quite a yawn. I have been having fun experimenting with a couple of formatting things, but geez, already. It's just as bad as sorting through the 91 pictures from the trip...

As you are aware, I've been "training" for a 5K run and I have been trying to follow the plan as closely as possible. I fully intended to remain on track even while on vacation. I managed to run the treadmill in the hotel on Saturday evening and Monday, I got the opportunity to hit the road out in Sterling, VA. Kyle and "Tall" Cate took the kids to the Udvar-Hazy Center--an extension of the National Air and Space Museum out near Dulles Airport and I jogged around the Coleman neighborhood with Pat toodling on his bike. He mis-calculated the distance to the pedestrian path (he thought it was 3/4 mi one way, where in reality it was close to a 1-1/2 miles), so I just jogged until he told me to turn around. I uttered expletives under my breath the entire time.

After Elizabeth came home from school, we met up with the others at the Great Falls State Park. I liken it to Gooseberry Falls in Minnesota. Water rushing through, rocks to climb, a great picnic area to play in. Here are pictures from our time there...

We stayed for dinner: hamburgers, pasta salad, and asparagus made especially for "Short" Cate which, to my embarrassment, she didn't eat. Afterwards, we said our good-byes and drove back to return our car rental and metro back to the hotel. The good-bye that evening was the final one for a long time, which made all of us a bit sad... In the end, another full day.

Washington DC Day 3: April 13, 2008

Sunday was game day and Sunday happened to be our coolest day. Not a good day to be going out to a ballpark, but tickets for the Washington Nationals are hard to come by, so when tickets happened to still be available for their first season in the new ballpark, one can't pass up the opportunity. Besides, who knew it would only be pushing 50 degrees mid-April in DC?

Since the game wasn't until 1:35, we decided to hit the Museum of Natural History. When we were sharing with Cate some of the things we were going to see and do while on vacation, she asked if any of the museums had dinosaur bones. She has seen Curious George movie more than a few times and figures that if you went to a museum, then you would get to see dinosaur bones. And since she was disappointed in learning that the giraffes weren't at the zoo, we wanted to be sure that she got to see something important on her short list to things to see. Well, sweet! Not only did the Museum of Natural History have cool dinosaur bones, but they had other animal bones and a taxonomic specimens of mammals--of which were a giraffe skeleton and a giraffe speciman. Sweet! She then forgave the error on the National Zoo's part for temporarily moving the giraffes without her consent.

Also in the Museum of Natural History had something just for me--the Hope Diamond and other extraordinary gem collections. Oddly enough, the Hope Diamond was a bit underwhelming for me. Perhaps it's because I don't have a gemology background, but the other colored gems were much more impressive to me.

We met up with Pat and the kids at the brand-spanking-new (and kid-friendly I might add!) stadium and climbed way, way up to the upper deck in the right field (or is it left field?) and settled in the best we could. It didn't take long before the kids were antsy to get to the play area. Unfortunately, Max was too young to play in the climbing area, so he and I made an early exit. Got some eats, watched a little bit of ballgame while shivering and barely made it to the 7th inning. Then we all got up and took the metro back to The Mall and hit the National Air and Space Museum. I think the kids were able to enjoy it somewhat. I happened to eye a small exhibit highlighting some popular items from the Museum of American History and snuck in there while all others went the other way. Little did I know then that the American History museum was closed for renovation, so at least I got to see Dorothy's Ruby Slippers and Prince's Yellow Guitar from Purple Rain, among other things. We closed the museum down for the day and parted ways.

For us, we hunted for dinner. We decided to hit Union Station and opted to walk there since finding the exact location of the elevators (because of having our stroller) for the Metros were a total pain in the ass. On our way, we passed by the Capitol. Cate really wanted to throw some pennies into the big pool. We wouldn't let her. You can see by the family photo, Max got in a bit of a snooze despite the gravel-covered terrain. Also, I caught some lovely yellow tulips in front of the Capitol--an almost artsy shot (yay me!). When we finally got to Union Station, I was feeling rather nostalgic from when we "discovered" it back in 2002. It's architecture is awesome, the shops were really cool and the eats were more original. Guess where we ended up eating? You guessed it--McDonald's. Oh well, we don't go on a vacation and explore new cuisine. We just eat. Besides, the kids ate all their food. Afterwards, we found some gelato at the last minute. The guy was closing up shop when I approached the counter with my order. He looked over and asked if it was for the kid (Cate) and I gave him my best flirty head turn and said, no...it was really for me. He gave me a cup of gelato and told me it was on the house. I guess that was one hell of a head turn... :)

Hopped back on the metro and headed back to the hotel. The end of the third day.

Washington DC Day 2: April 12, 2008

Saturday started out overcast and our first event of the day was to attend the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade. We met up with the entire Coleman clan on the steps of the Archives. One would think that would be a cool destination to view the parade--up on the stairs, above the street crowd--but one problem: Strollers. Good idea, but not easily executed. So we sat on the lower six stairs and our view was obstructed by the crowds up along the street.


From left to right: Colleen and Cate Coleman, Kyle and Cate Jensen.












It's just like being at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade--big balloons! To the right is Bob the Builder, popular cartoon character on PBS.



After a couple of scattered showers enough to put a damper on our group of spectators, we decided to move along to our next destination--the National Zoo. This zoo is expansive. I wonder if we covered half of it. The Giant Pandas, a very popular exhibit, were out sunning themselves, despite the absence of sun. "Short" Cate is a huge fan of giraffes. This zoo has giraffes. However, they were on a "vacation" as their habitat was being reconstructed. She was disappointed, but was consoled as the zoo had her second favorite animal, zebras. We got up close to zebras as a couple of zookeepers fed them and educated us about their particular "breed". Here is a prairie dog "posing" for the camera.


The highlight had to have been the pizza playground. It's a nifty stop near the farm animals which demonstrates all the pizza ingredients that are mostly, or in part, produced from the farm. The kids tunneled through black olives, mounted a wedge of cheese, balanced on the crust, piled the pepperoni and mushrooms and stirred the pot of sauce. We parents caught our breath while the kids vented some of their energy.



After the zoo, we parted ways. Robert, Cate and Max sat together on the Metro for one leg of the trip home. Robert was sad we were splitting up, but was okay after we told him we would see him again the next day.

Once back on our "home" turf, we enjoyed dinner at the The Post Pub, got back to the hotel, where the kids unwound for a little bit. Once into bed, it didn't take long before they were truly out and in some extremely odd positions as evidenced here...

Washington DC Day 1: April 11, 2008

Our trip to Washington DC has come and gone already. We brought the computer in the hopes that I would blog at the end of each day, but I had limited access web connectivity. So now I am trying to play catch-up before I forget all that we did.

The kids really enjoyed the flight there and others on the plane commented on how well behaved they were. We brought one car seat--Cate's. Max got settled into her car seat in the airplane. Then, when we landed, my friend Pat Coleman drove over and loaned us a booster seat so we could get the kids in the shuttle to the hotel. It worked out really well.

We made it into the city around 3 o'clock and headed out more or less right away. We stayed at the Homewood Suites by Hilton on Massachusetts Avenue. It suited our needs perfectly. It was a two room suite with the double beds and bathroom separate from the rest of the living space and kitchenette. The complimentary breakfasts were awesome--eggs, breakfast meat, bisuits and gravy (my personal favorite!), yogurt, dry cereal, oatmeal, breads, bagels, croissants, danish, a make-your-own waffle station, fruit, a variety of juices and other beverages. All this affordability only six blocks from the White House! I recommend the hotel to any family planning a stay in DC.

To pass the time before hitting the Metro out to the 'burbs for an evening with the Colemans, we walked down to the White house. It was sunny and mid-70s. We didn't bring shorts, so we adapted and rolled up pants. It was so cool being back in the Nation's Capital! Kyle and I had been in DC back in 2002 BC (before children). I looked forward trying to share some of the significance of this city to Cate. I'm pretty sure it was a fruitless effort.

The kids really, really liked riding the metro. Especially Max. He would shake his arms about and shriek when the train was coming through the tunnel. He loved the pressure of the wind blowing us around as the train approached. We rode out about 40 minutes to the last stop and Pat picked us up at the "kiss and ride". It was another 15 minutes' ride to their house.

The kids interacted well together playing in the backyard, while Pat manned the grill on the patio and "tall" Cate and Elizabeth bustled in the kitchen. Kyle and I....well, uh, I guess we just sat around. It was a feast--steak for the grown-ups and hot dogs for the little ones. Along with roasted potatoes, fabulous bread with olive oil and lime dessert.

We then enjoyed some family time together where I took advantage of Pat's web knowledge and he helped me modify the blog set-up. Unfortunately, I think everything he taught me went in one ear and out the other, because this is still a drag to efficiently format. Practice makes perfect, though...

At the end of the evening, Pat brought us all the way back into the city (45 minutes) and gave us a driving tour of the monuments at night. God bless Pat!

The kids passed out immediately upon getting them into bed. Phew! This family vacation thing wasn't going to be so bad after all...

A photo of me and my goddaughter, Colleen--she is such a cutie!