After two months of travel and living out of suitcases, we were all very ready to get to our new house and home city. We had a couple of weeks to get settled in before school started for the girls. Plus we had some early visitors which was a lot of fun - Abu Dhabi friends and then Gammy & Poppy who spent most of their time helping us unpack but we also managed to get in some museum time and a hike. Almost the end of summer...
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| Girls are super excited to get to go into our new house for the first time - they ran from the car to the house |
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| Jane trying to figure out which key opens the door |
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| The girls are modeling with a great birthday gift Jake gave me - four wonderful ducks with red boots. We all love them! |
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| Super, super excited girls. Regan's dear friend Daniela arrived (by herself!) from Abu Dhabi for a 10 day visit |
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| We arrived on a Saturday evening, Daniela arrived Sunday evening and look what made it on Monday morning. Our container from Abu Dhabi. Yay! |
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| Unloading time |
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| Going to look around Regan's school. View isn't too shabby - we can see the kayakers and whitewater rafters on the Potomac |
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| Carefree Regan |
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| Tired Meredith - draping over a sofa in Regan's school's student center |
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| Regan's friend comes all the way to visit from Abu Dhabi and what do I have her do?? Vacuum! Daniela was amazing and would pitch in cheerfully (even more cheerfully than our own kids) when it was chore time |
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| Fun time - off to the Natural History museum (time for a break in unpacking) - Meredith admiring the Hope Diamond |
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| Narwhal, narwhal swimming in the ocean, causing a commotion |
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| Daniela is from Columbia - thought it was appropriate to take her to a Simon Bolivar statue in DC. Also included is Brad - another Abu Dhabi friend who visited with his mom for the weekend |
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| Einstein crawl-on-able statue |
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| Vietnam memorial |
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| Where history was made |
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| Amazing to be at the Lincoln Memorial and re-reading his Gettysburg address and second inaugural speech. Both messages are sadly still very pertinent today... |
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| Korean War memorial - also amazingly touching |
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| We were there for the 'changing of the guard' of the snipers on the roof - you can see them standing up to the right of the flagpole. It's certainly not an official ceremony - I think it just means we could see them standing up and switching places with the next shift |
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| Fun group of kids - our girls + Daniela + Brad. Great, busy, far-walking day |
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| Kids do a great job of entertaining themselves - we are waiting for a table and they are playing some kind of hand game. |
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| Almost time for the eclipse and we're making our own viewers |
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| Watching the sun get smaller and smaller |
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| We even got Poppy and Gammy in on the action |
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| It really worked - see the partial sun!! So exciting. |
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| Sun-during-the-eclipse-shaped shadows |
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| Ice cream at Millie's, our local neighborhood restaurant |
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| Sadly, it's time to say good-bye to Daniela who was a wonderful addition to our family. We'll all miss her so much. |
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| Good-bye! She's so brave to fly here and back on her own! |
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| Gammy remembers all her high school and college math and helps Regan with her summer homework - there was a lot of it and it was hard! |
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| Front yard soccer - laughs and fun all around |
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| When you have four girls, you get things like a 'choreographed wall dance' - really fun and well done! |
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| Rock Creek Park hike - our urban oasis not too far from our house |
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| Creeks and rocks are fun |
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| So happy Gammy and Poppy came to help us get unpacked |
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| We arrived the same day as the Charlottesville incident. I needed to do a (small) part |
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| Meeting Jake at the airport - it was a sidewalk sign instead of at arrivals because I got lost driving to the airport! The girls all have tutus on and the sign says, "We love you 'tu-tu' the moon and back" |
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