Day trip into DC

Dan took us into DC this weekend so we could tour the Pentagon and the Capitol. Before going into the Pentagon, we stopped at the 9/11 memorial. Grant and Julia were so little that they really didn't remember anything about 9/11 so we spent a lot of time explaining and re-living that day.

The memorial is basically a bunch of benches (one for each person that died), but the amount of thought that went into the placement of all of them was incredible. They put so much meaning into the angle, direction and distance between benches. It was all very interesting.

Each bench had a name on it. If you were reading the name and facing the sky, that person was on the plane. If you were facing the Pentagon, then that person was in the building at the time . Dan took us into the building and we wandered around through the various exhibits in all of the hallways. In the rebuilt area where the plane had hit, were memorial quilts and a chapel. In the other areas were some cool displays by each branch of the military.

After the Pentagon, we took the metro over to the capitol.

This is the rotunda.

Cincinnati part two

I think it was only a week ago that we were in Cincinnati, but it feels like ages already.
Dan took all the guys to a Reds game. The picture above is Dan's dad and the boys and below is Dan and his Uncle Rick. Tim was there, but no picture?

Dan's parents took us all to Kings Island. Everyone had a great time, but it was especially good for Julia to get to know her cousins. She and Zach really connected.

Quincy helped by taking the little kids on some of the bigger rides. It wasn't a hardship, she had fun doing it.

Marjie and Brandi... you can right click on these pictures and save them to your computer.

Savannah and Tristan... Cute!!!

Getting together at the end of the day.

I had to take this picture of Grant to prove that he was really there. For most of the day, he was off with Dan riding the big roller coasters.

Julia was soaked from riding the white water raft thing TWICE!

Cincinnati Zoo

West Virginia

I put these photos up but never got around to saying anything about them, so I never published this. I'm just going to put a few posts up without words. If you have any questions about them, let me know.

Getting all Artsy

Julia found this project in a craft book. It was a fairly simple concept... roll some marbles around in paint, but it turned out to be lots of fun and created some pretty cool pictures. They felt a little "Jackson Pollack."
I can only hope that my cookie sheets will come clean. :o&

The pictures below are some watercolors that I picked up on a whim at a small antique shop.
The lady gave all four of them to me for 15 dollars! It was such a good deal that I bought them without having really looked closely at them or knowing where to put them in my house. I just knew that I wanted them. After some consideration, I knew exactly where they belonged. There had been a big blank space above my couch for far too long, so there they went.