Good Times, Noodle Salad

Everything you want to see back east is about 2 hours from Jon and Michelle's house, I'm not kidding everything, so we decided we would go to Washington DC for 1 night. We stayed at the JW Marriott right downtown (fancy), our room was on the 2nd floor so Marti and Emersyn thougth it was fun to sit by the window and watch all the action on the street.

We went to the Air and Space Museum (really cool) and then walked past the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. I was kind of disappointed with the state of The National Mall, it needs some serious fertilizer and maintenance. I thought the coolest thing was the Lincoln Memorial.... until we got kicked out because there was a bomb threat (yikes). We tried to walk past the White House, which is not as easy as you would think to find, and when we finally got there they shut the sidewalk down for security reasons so we couldn't get very close. It was still cool to see, even from a distance.

Kory's favorite part was going to the Museum of Natural History, he liked the dead animals and I liked the diamond and precious stone gallery.

There is so much to see there we will have to go back, hopefully when the kids are old enough that we can go to the adult attractions, i.e. Arlington and the Holocaust Museum etc.

We got back from our trip to Delaware on Saturday and Marti was ready to go back on Sunday. We had a really good time seeing Jon and Michelle and the kids. Marti and Brinley got along especially well, except when it came to sharing the boys. They spent a lot of their time playing dress up. Emersyn really loved Kayla (who is totally adorable and sweet) and liked to smother her with hugs and kisses. Dallin and Josh were so sweet and patient with the girls, Dallin spent a lot of his time reading them books.

We went to the Baltimore Aquarium and watched the dolphin show and then ate dinner right by the ocean (or at least I think it was the ocean?).

We went to the beach and spent a day enjoying the sand and water, we even saw dolphins swimming nearby. I think Marti and Emersyn still might have sand stuck to her scalps from that trip.

We all went to see Kung Fu Panda, which is really good, and then we left the kids with a babysitter, except Kayla, and the adults went to dinner.

Kory locked the keys in our rental car, with the car running, and then we had to wait 2 and 1/2 hours until a locksmith came to unlock it. We wasted a lot of gas. I think that Kory and I are now even for the Bear Lake ditch incident.

I got to test my driving skills as we were driving to Philadelphia in rain that can best be described as a waterfall. We made it, but it was definitely white knuckle driving.

We had pretty good weather while we were there, they have afternoon thunderstorms that pop up a lot, but that didn't stop the kids from running through the sprinklers, until the lightning started.

This will be my last blog for a while because we are going to Delaware tomorrow to visit Kory's brother and family. (I hope they are ready for a little 2 year old attitude.)

We had planned on going to my Mom & Dad's new house so that the girls could swim in their community pool. We got to the pool and saw a sign that said that pool was closed because there were "feces" in it. So, we decided to make our own pool in my parents bathtub. We put some bubble bath in it turned on the jets and made a big bubbly tub. They had an awesome time making bubble hats and "swimming" in the bathtub.

We went on our first trip to Lagoon last week. Marti's favorite ride was the merry go round, she's a real wild one. I thought Emersyn would be afraid of the little roller coaster we went on, but it ended up that Marti was a big chicken and Emersyn was saying "weeeeeeee". Marti and her cousin Joey were attached at the hip the whole day, they went on every ride they could together. The first ride they did was the little swings, before the ride started Joey got scared and started to cry. Marti didn't miss a beat she just put her arm around him and told him it would be ok, that was how they spent the rest of the ride. We had some little cupcakes for my birthday and Nathan, Joey and Daniel picked out a cool Transformers birthday hat for me (thanks guys).

Marti got her first professional haircut today. She was really good about holding still, she thought getting her hair blow dried was the best part, that and the treat she got after. She looks like such a big girl.

We had an incident with the baby powder. Marti knew there was going to be trouble so when she heard me coming up the stairs she took off. Emersyn was just sitting there in the pile with a big grin on her face, she wasn't so smiley when she got a timeout.

I thought I should explain our blog name, to those of you who don't already know where it comes from. It is from a movie called As Good as It Gets, here is the complete line:

"Some people have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad."

Kory and I use this line a lot when we talk about good memories we have from our childhoods. Hopefully by using this blog as a kind of family journal I will remember to fill my kids lives with noodle salad memories so that when they look back to their childhoods they can feel that they have great and pretty stories.