Our week in pictures (May 31-June 6)

Monday:

On our drive home from the cabin, Adam needed to stop at Lowe's for some supplies. Andrew took this opportunity to start driver training. He's so cute it doesn't matter that he can't reach the pedals!

Tuesday:

Today was a blur of laundry, packing, baseball game, and more laundry and packing.

Wednesday:

A four hour plane ride by myself with four kids. It went just about how you would imagine it to go. I knew I would have no trouble from Benjamin and Madeleine. I figured Andrew wouldn't be too big of a problem. I was extremely worried about Isaac. I figured it would be like having four Sacrament meetings right in a row. At first he was so excited to be on a plane, and to look out the window and to feel us take off. After that I put on a movie and he and Madeleine watched for a while. That killed about an hour and a half. Andrew fell asleep then, so I was sitting there with nothing to do and no one to wrestle with. Then the kids got bored with the movie and they got out their toys. Isaac did okay until about the last hour. Then he started losing his mind. He wanted to be in the aisle and watch Benjamin play his DS. I let him do that for a little while, but then it got bumpy and he had to sit back down. That didn't go over very well. When we were starting to go descend he was very angry about not being able to stand in the aisle, or even stand on his seat. I was wrestling him, and had to give Andrew to Benjamin several times. We finally landed and got off the plane. Unfortunately, next week we have to get back on the plane for a five hour flight back.

Thursday:

We took a trip up to Pennsylvania to go to the Utz potato chip factory. The sign said we couldn't take pictures of the tour, but I snuck one. We got to walk down a long hallway and watch the chips start out as potatoes, be peeled, sliced, fried, flavored and bagged. Then we got a free bag of chips and ate them.

When we got home, it was so hot that Grandma got out her little pool for the kids to play in. Aunt Lauren brought water guns and the kids had fun playing with those.

Friday:

We did a little shopping at the outlet mall, and then came home to play in the pool some more. It was hot and sweltering. I decided that if I had to choose between the unusually cold spring of Idaho, and the terribly hot humid summer of Maryland I would choose the cold spring. As they say here, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity!"

Saturday:

We rode the Metro down to D.C. to check out some of the Smithsonian Museums. We started at the American History Museum. I could have spent a lot more time in there, but kids get bored and want to move on. This was at an exhibit about changing cars in America. I figured Benjamin looked like a good car salesman!

Now we're in the Natural History museum, which has all the animals, dinosaurs, cavemen etc for the kids to look at. This was an absolute blast for Isaac. He ran away several times, and I was so thankful to have my brother Matt with his wife Melissa who were in charge of Isaac. They chased him up and down ramps, up escalators, down elevators, and just kept an eye on him while I walked around with the older kids. Here's the classic shot of Grandma with the kids in front of the elephant in the rotunda.

We left the museum to get some space for the kids to run around. We set Isaac free and he was half way across the mall before we could catch him.

Ben found a stick and used it to terrorize some pigeons.

We walked right past the popsicle vendors and Madeleine just about lost it. It was hot hot hot with high humidity, and she just couldn't get it back together. She sat on a bench for a while with everyone else waiting for her to be done with the fit. Finally, I moved her along even though she wasn't done complaining.

And Grandma saved the day by buying popsicles.

So Madeleine lived to see another day.

Sunday:

Andrew is so close the crawling. He gets around and gets the stuff he wants pretty easily.

Madeleine spent some time playing with the stencils Grandma has.