the National Aquarium in Baltimore

On the way home from spring break, we stopped off in Baltimore at the National Aquarium. We visited the aquarium a couple of years ago and wanted to check it out again. It was a great time and they keep adding new things every year. We saw all of the exhibits to include the new "Down Under" Aussie exhibit and the Dolphin Show. Brittany liked the pretty fish & the boys loved the sharks... go figure. If you're near Baltimore, stop off in Inner-Harbour and check it out.

Spring Break part 2 - Monuments

We took time to get out some energy and walk from the museums out onto the National Mall. We saw the Capital (and all 25 protesters... more media showed up than anti-war demonstrators), then headed a mile down to the Washington Monument. It was great to run and play on the Mall and see the sights on the way. Once we reached the hill that it is on, we could see the White House and both Jefferson & Lincoln Memorials. But what caught our eye next was the World War II Memorial, a fairly recent addition between the Washington Monument & Lincoln Memorial. We hiked the extra half mile and found one of the most spectacular monuments of all, well worth the walk. All in all, the kids ran & played while we got to enjoy some of our national treasures... again, pretty cool.

Spring Break part 1 - the Smithsonian

We took a few days leave and went to Washington D.C. for Spring Break. We stayed downtown at Fort McNair, right near the heart of everything. We didn't have time to visit all 19 Smithsonian locations around the area, but we did get to see the Air & Space and Natural History museums. Exhibit highlights included seeing a moon lander spacecraft, the first Star Wars robots, the original Kermit the Frog, a sculptured rock from Easter Island (that the kids liked to mimic), and LOTS of dinosaurs. Other exhibits that the kids enjoyed that are not shown included the Spirit of St.Louis (and all the other "cool, old airplanes"), a moon rock you can touch, costumes from the Wizard of Oz, and the best part... they opened up a McDonalds inside the Air & Space Museum! Well, it really is terrific if you're a kid who is hungry for lunch in the middle of checking out spaceships and dinosaurs. Pretty cool!

Alex's Basketball Team

This was the first year that Alex got to play basketball, and he had so much fun! The league is made up of 5 & 6 year olds, so the kids have little understanding of the game. They dribble once, run a few steps, dribble again, run again, and so on. It is always entertaining to watch them. There was one game where Alex had a buzzer beater in the last second of the game. You should have seen the kid jump up and down. He was so excited. Of course, no score is kept so it's not like the basket mattered, but you would have thought they won the championship game. It was so cute.

P.S. There are coaches of this team, but they are in the Witness Protection Program so we couldn't show you their faces (...or we accidentally cut them off in the picture...your choice).