To Say Merry Christmas To You

The boys' school had their Winter Program tonite, filled with catchy tunes and a lot of wonderful story about celebrating the holiday despite snow storms that disable the power.  Harry's class were the line workers, and Jack's were carolers complete with ukuleles.  Their music teacher always writes the most creative music and scripts for the kids.  Cuteness abounded.

Harry and his great friend Olivia getting ready for the show,
thanx for the hat and the sweet delivery system!

Jack seriously playing his ukulele

Harry fought to keep his hat on, but had a great time

Jimmy Buffett's Mele Kalikimaka

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat

The boys participated in an after-school production of Alice In Wonderland last week.  A wacky time was had by all!

Cheshire Cat is ready to go!

And tells Alice like it is...

...a few times!

Mad Hatter hits the tea party

Jack introducing himself

Harry introducing himself

Harry showing off his art work....a fountain his friend Sara helped him make.

Harry digs into the after party treats

Jack showing off his favorite part of his costume...the tail!

Play is done!

Alice In Wonderland

Let me tell of a time when the world was in rhyme with the sound of our laughter

Harry has always had some connection with opera and lives his life in music, so when an opportunity to go to a real, live opera came up....we jumped on it!  

First, there was the stylish dressing and posing with Mommy...

 ...then the sweet goodbyes with Brother Jack 

(Jack says this picture makes him look like a ragged boy and Harry like a rich man)

 His big send-off pose 

 Let's go, already!

 To get into the spirit of the nite, we went to his favorite Italian restaurant....

 ....you got it, it has a fountain!

 A little more posing, just in case it wasn't obvious that we were excited.  He thought this one made it look like we were really on the streets of Italy ;-)

 A taste of Italy

 It's delish

 ...and messy!

There were no pix during the show, but it was a really great job in a nicely refurbished theater with an art deco styling that Harry dug.  He made it through most of the first half before nodding off, seeming to really like the acting and singing.  He did as if there would be any lady singers after the first scene was nothing but bohemian men.

To say thanx to Daddy for directional assistance and let him and Jack know we loved them, we stopped at a sweet old-fashioned donut store on the way home. 

He's still perfecting his milk 'stache 

The fat lady, as the expression goes, has sung!

La Boheme

Every Picture Tells A Story

We got some funny and some special pictures, start with an ever watchful Harry on the train

and on the tour bus

Jack had a pensive moment while touring
and did not really want me documenting it

Harry was not in the mood to pose anymore while visiting mummies

Did Jack's efforts really pay off?

It looks like Jack may be getting to that age

I realized after looking back at these pix that I have the exact same shot of me with them when they were about a month old - each of us holding the other in a circle :wub:

Jack taking a picture of Harry taking a picture of us at Jefferson Mem

This one looks nice,

but ended up like this - so tired of posing (hugging)!

Jack trying to be as tall as Dean outside FDR

Love this photo at MLK

Harry had been copying all the mask expressions at NA Museum, the spear was a fluke

They tried to think of a way they could do something as big as The Wright Brothers

Harry decided to take on the train at American History

Rod Stewart

And we caught every sight

The boys wanted to take a trip to the nation's capitol to see all the things they have been learning about in school this year - they chose it over a party, so off we went during Spring Break (note to self: not the best time to visit because EVERYONE is visiting then)

We caught the bus a lot of times, and Harry perfected his chill

while Jack mastered strap hanging Regardless, we made the best of it. Jack even survived a near miss with a reckless taxi driver which put us all into a more appreciative frame of mind.
They have done a unit on Native Americans, so we checked out the new museum
Harry still loves VW's, but none of us had ever seen one like this - it was completely covered in beads...pretty groovy

The displays we saw were a bit disappointing, but we checked out all the tribes they covered in class: Pueblo

Lakota

and Powhatan

Harry was on a mission to see all the fountains in town....think he found most of them!

The Washington Monument was still closed for repairs after last year's earthquake, but it was still beautiful - hopefully they will get to go up in it next trip

Harry was determined to see the Bee display we'd seen with friends a few years ago.

He thought their exit was cool, but even better once he took the picture and got all those cars in the shot ;-)

Our self-portrait in front of the fountains at the National Gallery of Art, where Dean and I posed in the last century

My three boys in front of Lincoln Memorial

Harry really liked this fountain at the FDR memorial

Jack insisted that "Washington DC is the BEST place in America!"

Well, we caught everything...except when Angry Birds intervened

One of the biggest hits was our hotel and the sweet lady who took care of our room - the boys wrote her notes every day.

The real thrill of the hotel, however, was the amazing koi pond and double waterfall

We even got to visit with a favorite friend who had moved away - Mrs. Sharon used to be the postmistress in our little town, and now she's organizing things in DC. She's still spoiling them rotten!

Thanx to Dean for suffering the crowds and getting us to all the places they wanted to see!

Bob Seger's Sightseeing

Just noticed this is my 1000th post!