July Re-cap

We often travel in July, rarely have we been in town for the entire month. But this year it worked out that we were here from the 1st to the 31st and we took advantage of every second. The first week of the month was filled with a visit from my cousin Nikki and her fiancé Cody and out annual 4th of July festivities. The festivities, however, had a
twist this time because of torrential rain at the same time as the parade. But as they say, the show must go on, and our little neighborhood parade did. We were part of the neighborhood Snow Shoveling Brigade. The boys had a wagon full of ice and would throw it out as the Brigade of adults would shovel it up in "formation." Our goofy routine impressed the parade judges and earned our group a first place medal. To be honest, the competition was pretty limited this year because of the rain storm. But first is still first and we were excited. Fortunately, the rain stopped just as the parade ended and we were able to enjoy the neighborhood BBQ in drier weather.

Each day we went on an adventure or, if it rained, created something new at home. Some of the adventures included berry picking, the Theatre in the Woods at Wolf Trap, robot making, mini golf, the zoo, pretzel making, the Smithsonian Discovery Theatre, splash parks, the trampoline jump house, the Building Museum, the City of Alexandria's birthday party, parks, a taping of a Sirus XM radio show for kids, and Cabin John's train.

 

 

This one deserves a highlight. The National Building Museum hosted an exhibit called The Beach. (Definitely check out the photos on this link, http://www.nbm.org/exhibitions-collections/exhibitions/the-beach.html). It is an indoor exhibit that they have made to look and feel like the beach expect instead of water, there are millions - literally - of the clear plastic balls to dive in. It's pretty over-the-top. It was around 40" high in the deep end - Gates would jump in and completely disappear. I watched dozens of adults get stuck and need help getting out (very funny). Here are close-ups of us buried in the wave of balls...

And here is an aerial shot of the "water" at the beach... 

In addition to our morning adventures, almost every afternoon in July you could find us at the pool. Bodie has become a regular fish, swimming the full length of the pool unassisted, diving off the diving board, whipping off the slide and grinning the entire time.
Gates has upgraded to water wings and tries to follow Bodie everywhere in the pool - as long as mom or dad is closely nearby. Both boys are ridiculously tan with sun bleached blond hair and as a neighbor recently said, "They look like a walking Coppertone commercial!" We love the pool and feel so lucky to get to spend so much time enjoying the water. Oh, and I was just wondering, does anyone look cool in goggles?!?!!