April's Happenings

My ulterior (and often primary) motive in blogging is that it also serves as a family journal. In that spirit, I'm going to recap what's been going on for the last month or so.

Rachel's 24th birthday was on March 2nd, but it was about a month after that that one of her birthday presents finally arrived in the mail—a journal of her first 24 years of life. In my free time and typed her handwritten journals (about 5 books that were only about 1/4th full each) into her ldsjournal.com account. You can back date the entries and do a lot of other stuff. I use it for my personal journal-ing and recommend it.

We moved out of one apartment and into another and could not be happier. Compared to our old place our new place has washer/dryer, an extra bedroom, bigger in general, many new upgrades (kitchen/bathroom floors, ceiling fans, floor heaters), a back porch, a back yard, a bus stop right in front, a park a stone's throw away, and costs the same. We signed a lease through June 30th, 2013. 

Hannah is potty-trained. Here she is below getting an ice cream shake from Cookout (This place deserves a post of it's own. Everyone who has visited us has gone there and loves it, kids and adults alike). Having twins for me is as natural as being married—I never knew any kid scenario without twins. But I try to think about how it makes things different some times. I feel like teaching them things is a lot harder, potty-training being one of those. Hannah has led the way in acquiring new skills (e.g. walking, talking). Heber is doing okay, but has a way to go. But he excels in other ways (i.e. brave, diligent, persistent).

The day after we moved into our new place, we left and drove up to Washington D.C. for a couple of days to pick up Kimball and Lindsay from the airport, go to the D.C. temple, and see some of the patriotic monuments. It's about a 5 hour drive, so we rented a vehicle since ours hasn't been very trustworthy lately.

We only had time to visit the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial wall. The White House had a long line just to get near it, so we had to settle for a distant view. However, I thought riding the subway was a sight in itself. It was a 3 minute escalator down into.

3 minute escalator down to subway

Daddy and daughter in front of the white House

Heber and Talmage in the Museum of Natural History

Heber was captivated from beginning to end. He didn't nap until the ride back to Blacksburg

Vietnam Memorial Wall

In front of the Lincoln Memorial

Olive, Hannah and Heber on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Washington Monument

Heber and Hannah in front of the Lincoln Memorial statue

Aunt Lindsay with Hannah and Olive

Kimball, Talmage and Heber pestering the ducks

Hebey being Squeeby

D.C. Subway

For the next several days we got to enjoy the presence of my brother Kimball, sister Lindsay and her boyfriend Steve at our house. We took them out to some of our favorite places like Due South BBQ, Cookout (of course. I think Steve and Kimball went here 3 or 4 times in their short time), and Lefty's Grille.). Interestingly, 

Just as we moved in the Town of Blacksburg began a project to put a new sidewalk all along our street.

Kimball and Steve both had interviews while here that sealed up jobs for them. Steve comes out next week to work as an ICU nurse in Bristol, VA and Kimball will come a couple of weeks later as an intern in Blacksburg, VA in my office. Just to give you some context of these places , here's a map.

Since they left we've been riding our bikes around everywhere, eventually trying to get to the point where we no longer use our car at all. So I'll end this with a story of pictures.

Ethiopian food at Excellent Table. Different but good.

Frozen yogurt at Frost Parrot. Not different and delicious.

Rachel's backside down the Huckleberry Trail

Talmage's front side on the Huckleberry Trail

Multi-tasking on three computers

Hannah probing the produce

Heber contemplating his appetite

Biking through town

Hannah reading/telling stories to Heber

Piled on top of our favorite girl