Halloween

We had a great time this year for Halloween.  Avery and momma dressed up as cats, and our Millie cat fit right in:

Daddy and Avery posed as Batman and baby-cat-woman:

We left our house with a bucket of candy and our pumpkins and headed out:

Thanks to Great Grandma Harper for those cermanic pumpkins she made Avery and us!

On our way went on the "loop" as we call it, a low volume street off of our busy street, where a lot of our neighbor friends live and where there are very few cars.  On that loop we met up with one of Avery's best friend Olivia who was dressed up as a bumblebee:

Then they hopped in a wagon together and we joined up with them for the rest of the night:

We had some good adult beverages with the parents along the way, and the kids enjoyed spending time together running up to each house, including this one nicely decorated:

We must have passed at least 50 kids on that loop, a lot of them we know:

Avery did such a good job at each house, she would say "Happy Halloween!", or "Trick or Treat", or "Thank you!", but not necesarily in that order.  She was a huge hit with each house

Happy Halloween everybody!!!!

Hurricane Sandy, day two

Well Hurricane Sandy came ashore last night and has now left (for the most part).  We escaped without any catastrophic damage, and we still have power even though it flickered a lot last night.  We spend the night in the basement, a family slumber party.  Avery liked being next to mommy and daddy, a fun change of pace.

This morning once the wind died down and the rain tapered to a drizzle, we assessed the neighborhood.  At our house, the only casualty were all the leaves and beautiful foliage that got blown off!

Then we put on our rain gear

And Avery got into daddy's backpack

And we went off an adventure by taking a walk down to Rock Creek Park to see what it looked like.  Avery loves our family adventures.  There were trees down across the trail and road

And the creek, which is normally a babbling little stream through the rocks, was nearly overflowing onto the road.  We could tell last night it had over topped the road since a lot of the road and path were covered in sand (see above pictures).  At the bridge under Connecticut Ave the trail was covered by the overflowing stream!

Luckily we made it through without much other damage, it appears that NYC and NJ got the worst of it.

Hurricane Sandy, day one

So far on Monday, Hurricane Sandy is still offshore, but we are spending the day inside just to stay safe.  We've just had rain and few breezes, but nothing severe so far.  Avery is spending time in the basement on her art projects:

And Avery's best friend Sophie from across the street came over to play!

We still have power and are waiting for the worst part to come over our area!

Grandma and Grandpa Ball's (brief hurricane shortened) Visit

This weekend Grandma and Grandpa Ball (Jim's mom and stepdad Ted) visited Avery--and us--from St Louis.  They drove in and arrived Friday, just in time for the preparations for Hurricane Sandy that forced to leave early and shorten their trip.

On Friday night we went to American City Diner just inside the District line from Chevy Chase.  Since they love malts and 50s diners we thought that place was a good choice since they advertise about their malts!  They have a model train running around the ceiling that kept Avery entertained too.

Then we drove around and showed them the monuments at night since they are very neat lit up.

Saturday was the day we spent the most time showing them around and driving around since it was going to be the last warm sunny day before the storm hit.  We went downtown and they first wanted to see where Jim works.  We saw the outside:

And the inside:

Then we walked around the waterfront by Jim's work:

Then we went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, since they wanted a picture of the Spirit of St Louis plan that Charles Lindbergh flew.  They work at Lindbergh School District in St Louis and wanted a nice picture for their work.

And here they are with Mr Lindbergh himself:

Avery studied up on the scientific properties of lift / drag on different shapes of wings:

And ran through a jet engine:

And saw the Apollo space capsule (that went to the moon) up close behind the protective casing it was in

When you see the tight seating arrangement up close it is amazing the astronauts spent 3 straight days in that without getting claustrophobic!

Then we left there went and got pictures in front of the Capitol building:

We walked a bit more around the National Mall

That evening we went to IKEA since there are none in St Louis and they wanted to see one.

Sunday we went to Mt Vernon in Virginia to see George Washington's estate.

He had a nice view of the Potomac from their mansion,

They had 8,000 acres of their own.  There were so many outbuildings on the estate and the inside was so intricately decorated that you could tell he was really rich even for his time.  You couldn't take pictures inside the buildings, but it was well worth it to see it preserved exactly as they had it, with the original furniture, pictures, portraits, dishes, etc still there in their original place.  Avery did love the working farm still there:

Then Sunday evening they headed out (Stopping in OH for the night) to beat the storm and the potential for snow in the Appalachian mountains they had to cross.

Zoo pictures

Avery loves that we are zoo members. She goes so much she knows the differences between animals that even adults don't know. At the gorilla exhibit someone said "Look at the monkeys." Avery corrected them and told them they were gorillas. Here she is up close and personal with one:

And also some local deer were running through the zoo, Avery said "They escaped!!!"