Arabella's Birthday Celebrations

I am behind but I had to post some pictures of Arabella's birthday celebration!

 A breakfast of dad's famous pancakes and the special glass(by Lily).

 Presents were fun to open and she was especially happy about the new make up kit from Grandma and Grandpa Bird.

For school she wanted cupcakes with princess rings. We had to settle for Barbie and birthday crowns but she was happy!

 That night we opened the rest of her presents. Just today she did Rapunzels hair and it has about 15 clips and bows but she "brushed and brushed and brushed her hair".

 She loves her new France dress it has pink and silver sparkly Eiffel Towers on it. 

 Saturday was her party.  She wanted a Royal party.  We called it a Royal reception and had little appetizer type foods like at a tea party.  I should have taken a picture of the food and the kids helping to skewer the fruit, meat, cheese and fill the little veggie cups.  They were so helpful!

She picked this rainbow cake out of a cake magazine we have.  The cupcakes were chocolate and vanilla made from scratch by Peter and filled with a cream cheese icing filling. 

 The kids mostly just played but we did help them each make a fancy hat because royal people wear fancy hats.  I ordered some plastic barber shop quartet like hats from Oriental trading and we had ribbon, lace, markers, and fake flowers to decorate them with.

 She was so happy to open presents. This was her first real party and she loved every minute of it. The bear pictured above has become a new favorite that she sleeps with. 

And a final photo of the makeover Jon gave to Arabella with her makeup kit. 

Washington DC Day 4

We stayed on the 14th floor of our hotel (the top floor). We had a beautiful view of a roof top garden.

 The Korean War Memorial

 I loved the etched pictures in the wall.

 I loved that the leaves were still beautiful colors. 

 Part of the Vietnam War Memorial

 This wall is amazing. It is hard to describe how I felt seeing it and all of the names that are on it. 

We watched a couple look up and find a few names. They made rubbings of the names. 

 This is a statue that pays tribute to the women of Vietnam- Faith, Hope, Charity. 

 I loved seeing the memorials but they do have a bit of a sobering effect. Wars are fought for so many reasons and both sides believe their cause is just. After reading so many things and seeing many things while in DC about so many different wars, I felt that there were likely many soldiers and others who may not have been fully committed to the cause their "side" was fighting for but they were committed to something: family, life, liberty, self preservation, freedom, country, God. It is not too different than Helaman and his Title of Liberty he raised that knowing that the things he listed would touch different people and that we are motivated by different reasons that are interconnected.  

 Boy Scouts of America Monument

(We are still trying to figure out why the man as a waving piece of fabric for covering.)

 We loved the American History Museum. Really wished we would have had more time there too. 

Harry Potter's actual costume from the first movie. 

 Julia Child's kitchen

 I can't imagine why we don't have these anymore. 

 Super exciting to find this bit of Mormon history there. It is a sunstone (obviously) from the Nauvoo temple with a commemorative plate. I knew we would show up somewhere in there. 

 Dorothy's slippers- they were not as red as I thought they would be. 

George Washington's actual uniform.

The most amazing thing in this museum was The Star Spangled Banner. The flag for which the song was written. It was huge! You can not photograph it due to the fragile nature of it. It used to hang on the wall but it was falling apart so they took it down and have it in a really nice light, temperature controlled room sized case. I loved reading about the events of the flag being made and that song being written. 

We flew home that evening. We had such a marvelous time. We are most definitely going to take our kids there sometime but we are not going in the summer.  The crowds, heat and humidity would be not so great so fall or spring we will head there sometime. This was the longest we have been away from our kids but it was a really good thing for Peter and I. I don't feel this intense need to do something like that every year but it is definitely something we will do again (especially before my companion pass to fly free expires).

Washington DC Day 3

Saturday morning we started the day at Ford's Theater (where Lincoln was shot).

The museum part was really interesting. 

 We ran into a friend from high school there- crazy, eh?!

 Then we spent a few hours at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, we could have spent more time.

 Dolls for Lily.

 Interesting antlers and skeletons for Jon. As well as the triceratops skull below.

 A serious set of shark teeth!

 Really glad I am not a giraffe so that I have to drink like this.

 My mouth is almost as big as the hippos.

 My favorite piece in the precious gems section- really cool. It was crown Napolean gave to his wife. It is made of diamonds and turquoise. There was a matching necklace. Gorgeous!

 I actually that the crown was more impressive than the Hope diamond pictured above. 

 I am really glad this spider was dead.

We at lunch at Good Stuff Eatery and it was delicious! The hamburgers and fries were really good. Handformed patties and hand cut fries with a variety of dipping sauce (nothing like fry sauce but still good).

The milkshakes were sooo good! They make their own ice cream and it was so thick and creamy!

 Capital building. This was a good tour but since it was Saturday we could not see the actual chambers but I did think about the building and the things we saw when we watched White House Down that night.

 These two reliefs are across a room from each other and Peter thought they were really funny. First the Natives and the colonists are trying to kill each other and then they are cordially shaking hands. 

 Above you are looking at a Guttenburg Bible in the Library of Congress.

Below you are looking at the actual Gettysburg address. Abraham Lincoln had very nice penmanship.

 After the capital, we headed to the Air and Space Museum.

 Peter got a kick out of this picture of a Southwest airline attendant from the '60's.  They were trying out the sexy attire on attendants. 

 That is THE Wright Brothers' airplane the one they flew at Kitty Hawk. I believe some of the canvas has been replaced but a true piece of history.

 For dinner, we dug into (literally, because you eat with your fingers) some Ethiopian food. The largest population of Ethiopians outside of Ethiopia is in the Washington DC area. The food was really good. I would eat it again. We were most thankful to be sitting down our feet were tired and we had done a ton of walking and standing. 

I was really loving the time I was spending with this great guy!