Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Spring has Sprung!

Visits to the zoo, cherry blossoms, bike rides, the park - Spring is awesome!

I've had two visits to the zoo in the past two weeks - one with the Hickmans and Strattons and one with my buddy Christine. Christine is the best. She chased me around, made sure I didn't get eaten by lions or sneak under the fence with the llamas, and played all day.

We also took our annual bike ride to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. We take the scenic route and it's about a 20 mile ride round trip (my dad calls that "junk mileage," my mom calls it a workout). The ride was fun, and the blossoms looked like popcorn had exploded on all of the trees.

On the way back, about 5 miles from home, my dad got a little wobbly and quickly got to the side of the trail...his bike pedal had fallen off! Yes, the WHOLE left peddle. The bolt dropped out - somewhere - and now he had no way to connect it to his bike. Think quick dad, what should we do?

"I'm pretty sure I can still ride home like this" he confidently said. My mom smiled and said, "Sure, you want to pull Bodie in a bike trailer up hill for five miles while using only one pedal. Okay, give it a try Superman." (Who's Superman by the way?) Splat. It did not go well. One rotation and my dad conceded. So he hopped on my mom's bike and took off - zoom! While he was headed home to get the Jeep, my mom and I played at Gravely Point and watched the airplanes land until he came back to pick us - and the one pedal bike - up!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

What's Crafty, Wet, and Green...ME!

My cousin Francesca slept over last weekend and we did lots of fun stuff - made pizza for dinner, bunny-shaped rice krispie treats for her basketball team, and cooked homemade play dough. Lots of mess and lots of fun. Lucky me for having such a great cousin.

As the weather continued to play tricks on us - 35 degrees one day, 70 degrees the next - we caught a sunny day and headed two blocks down the street from our house to the creek on Four Mile Run. It's moving pretty fast these days but there are still enough shallow spots that I can stand in the water without floating away. I could throw rocks for hours. This one made a huge splash.

We kicked off the St. Patrick's Day month with the annual Brien Bash in Old Town Alexandria. Our friends the Briens host a party every year at a fun Irish pub on the same day as the Old Town St. Patrick's Day parade. So we got to hang out with fun people AND watch a cool parade.