Trip to Nama's

I took the kids to visit my Mom for three nights. We went downtown our first day there and walked a few blocks to get a view of the U.S. Capitol. Then to the Smithsonian's Postal Museum where the kids had a blast exploring the cab of a big rig. We saw mailboxes from other countries and looked at some of their stamps; we learned about Owney the postal dog who, in the 1880s, crisscrossed the country by riding on trains carrying U.S. mail; and we learned about a very valuable stamp -- a sheet of 100 were printed -- in which a biplane on the stamp was accidentally printed upside down. After 45 minutes or so we went next door to Union Station and bought lots of souvenirs -- stuffed animal dogs that look like the Obamas' Portuguese Waterdog (Bo); t-shirts featuring four founding fathers dancing to their ipods for Bryn and an Air and Space Museum t-shirt for Luke (even though we went there last year and not on this trip); and astronaut freeze-dried ice cream which neither Bryn nor Luke liked. The highlight for me was taking advantage of green screen technology and getting our picture with Obama in the Oval Office. [I'll see if I can scan the picture at Kinkos and add it here.]
The next day we went to the Montgomery County Fair. We saw some farm animals and watched a bit of a kids' magician and a bit of a poodle act. But the highlight for the kids was the carnival, complete with fun house, ferris wheel and this attraction which was a bit like a hamster wheel only on water:


That evening we went to the playground at Cabin John park. They enjoyed most an apparatus that's shaped a bit like a tall mushroom; the kids sat on the top half, which looks like a hemisphere, and squealed as I spun them around. We also visited the playground at Bells Mill Elementary, which recently reopened after having been rebuilt. I love this picture of Bryn, hanging upside down, toothless!

Bryn had brought her violin to show Nama her progress, and Bryn and Luke took to putting on duets with a surprising violinist:

Our last morning in the area we went to a wonderful new splash park:
We'll definitely go back to the splash park when we visit in the summer, and we'll try to time our visits to coincide with the county fair. We had a great visit, but with the highlights for Bryn and Luke being the county fair and splash park, we could have been anywhere in Middle America!