Ok Friends, get settled in. This is going to be a long one. I know I have to make up for the two weeks without a post. Truthfully, there wasn't a lot going on around here. Lots of school, running, basketball watching and packing up for our spring break vacation! This year, we decided to actually leave town and go to visit Washington DC and see our friends, Elle and Erica Brown. While we were visiting, we took in some sights with the other 5 million people that were in the city to see the cherry blossoms. It was crowded every where we went, but we managed to see everything we wanted to see--actually, show the kids everything we wanted them to see. I think they would have been perfectly happy to stay home and play with the neighbor girls and maybe make a trip to Connor Prairie. But in the grand spirit of Taller and Seibert Family vacations, we made them ride in the car at least 2 hours every day. Success!
Our first full day in DC took us to the Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. This is one that I have never been to and really wanted to see because of the Lunar Lander, Skylab, and the Apollo and Gemini capsules.
Lunar Lander. More memory in my iphone than this hunk of machinery and we still made it to the moon. Consider what could happen to the space program if Steve Jobs was in charge. The kids were unimpressed.
The Apollo capsule. wow. Can you even imagine being sealed in there? Too tight for my standards.
We did go into Skylab. That was pretty cool. Evie thought the shower was interesting.
Erica and sweet Elle were there too. She was a trooper of a 10 month old to put up with all the sights. Being strapped to her mama probably helped. It was getting pretty crowded and the kids were getting hungry and bored. we took a vote on lunch and the majority picked eating out of a truck.
Hot dogs from a truck. I choose to look the other way.
Evie enjoyed her dog.
Perhaps the happiest of the group was Jim. He enjoys a good moble dog. I tried not to think about all the hands that may have touched the kraut spoon on the condiment buffet. Yuck. Last time I ate from a truck that weekend.
The weather was fickle that day--periods of rain and then sunshine. We moved the car a little closer to the White House and then walked on over to take a look. Flat Stanley came with us for a school project.
I plan to dig this picture out when one of them becomes president.
The trees were absolutely beautiful all over the city. The cherry blossoms were nice, but didn't compare to the magnola trees. I want a magnola in the worst way, but haven't found a suitable site in my yard yet.
Then we decided to go up to my most favorite site in DC. The Washington monument. I think I have told this story once before. When I was a kid, I was probably asking my mom a million questions and driving her up a wall. One day I asked her how tall the Washington Monument was. She answered 100 ft. I was satisfied with the answer and actually believed her until I was 26 years old when I first visited the monument and learned it was 555ft tall. Mom, what else did you lie to me about? The price of Orange Juice (oj was considered "expensive" when I was growing up, but as soon as I left home, they started buying the fancy carton stuff...hmmm)?
It was very windy that day!
Jim and the kids ran all the way up the hill to the top. Much taller than 100ft, mom.
As you can see, the wind was really picking up. Zoom in on Annalise's face. It's hilarious.
I snapped a quick pick of Erica and Elle with the storm. Just as we were walking down the hill, it started to hail on us!
Lucky for us, there was a tent set up near the Monument so we took shelter until the hail stopped, but we were stuck in the rain for a long time. It took us a while to get the car collected and by then, we were all soaked!
Annalise was exhausted from a day of walking around.
And she was all wet down to the underpants from the rain. She decided to change into some dry clothes to watch the Butler v. VCU game--way to go Bulldogs!
Elle prefers to feed herself and she is a little messy.
Arg! I'm so embarassed!
The next day was much nicer and we ventured back downtown to go to the Museum of Natural History. I didn't think we would last long, but we ended up spending 4 hours there and we saw everything!!
Aunt Becky, this pictures are for you. We went into the butterfly house and the butterflies were very friendly.
Super duper friendly to Jim. He must have smelled like a flower.
Of particular interest to the kids was the rocks and gems exhibit. They kept running around looking for their birthstones. They thought this was pretty cool.
After lunch (which was super duper expensive in the Smithsonian) we started the long walk to the Lincoln Memorial. We stopped at the WWII Memorial for a break. Thanks to Erica and Elle for showing us around, being great hosts, and sharing your home with us. We hope that we didn't impose too much chaos into your lives.
Taking a break. Our legs were getting really tired.
We finally made it to Mr. Lincoln. We stayed there for about 2 minutes before the kids proclaimed themselves done and wanted to go home.
So there are these really big steps to the side of the normal person steps and the girls chose to go down that way. I was too tired to argue with them.
Family self portrait.
After all that walking, a girl gets pretty tired!
But the next day, we were up and at them again. This time, we rode the Metro into the city. When asked at the end of our trip what their favorite thing was about Washington DC, they both said riding the train. Man, we could have saved a lot of time and money if we just rode the train for a day and went home.
Instead we dragged them to the Capitol Building. While we were walking to the end of the security line, Evie proclaimed that it was going to be the most boring thing ever. That raised a lot of chuckles from the people in line.
Fortunately, Flat Stanely enjoyed it.
We spent a lot of time looking up as our tour guide pointed things out.
Evie ended up thinking the tour was cool because we wore headphones that had a little radio on them so we could hear the tour guide really well. We went to the Senate cafeteria for lunch (suprisingly affordable and pretty tasty) and then went to see the Pandas at the National zoo. I wish we could show you some picks, but someone forgot to charge the camera battery and empty the memory card.....
After staying up to watch the Butler Bulldogs self implode (18% shooting?? And you call yourself an Indiana team???), we packed up the car and headed west. On our way out of Virgina, we stopped at the other air and space museum near Dulles Airport. This may have been a mistake because we had 2 tired kids, a dad in MN, and a mom with a very short fuse. We didn't stay long, but I marched them through and pointed out important things like this spy plane that flew from LA to DC in 1 hour. Jim can tell you the name of the plane. It is black and fast. That's all I remember.
The big draw for me is always the space shuttle. Now that the shuttle program is closing down, we hear that another shuttle may end up in Dayton at the air force base. That would be so cool.
Unfortunately, the kids were in no mood to learn more about air travel and started beating each other up under the Concorde. I threw some lunch at them and we set out for Pittsburgh where we were spending the night.
With Uncle Jeff! We stayed at his house and he took us out for dinner and ice cream. The next morning, the girls got to take Sally, Uncle Jeff's dog, for a walk. Then it was back into the car. Things went realitively smooth until we blew a tire on the Ohio/WVA line. That stopped us up for a couple of hours. But we were back on the road. We made it home that night and the kids made a bee line for the neighbor's house. I'm so glad that those girls all get along because they played the whole day on Thursday while I decompressed from vacation. It was a fun trip but good to be home. If you would like to see more pictures, I can send you a link to my photo book of our trip. Just email me.
It was also the day of the neighborhood egg hunt. We rounded up our crew to head down to the hunt by the pool.
Of course, they had to get their goofy on before we left.
Sadly, because of the rain, we haven't been able to get out and pose the kids under our flowering trees this spring. The yard is like a marsh and the poor little grass seeds that we planted 2 weeks ago are probably rotting out in the ground. 
Here was the neighborhood turn out when given the green light. Look at those kids run!
Rumor has it that there were 1500 eggs! I think they were all found within 5 minutes and about 100 of them made it back to this house.
Later, Grandma and Grandpa Seibert came down for a weekend of eating. We did put Grandpa to work while he was here and the rain stopped. We needed to remove the half dead tulip tree from the yard. When Jim planted the new tree 6 feet away from this tree, he noticed that there were no roots from the half dead tree. After some discussion, the men decided to just push the tree over instead of cutting it down.
The plan worked pretty well and we don't even have to worry about a stump. The tree was rotting from the inside out. I'm glad we planted the new one. I hope it lives. It definately won't die because of lack of water.
It was also the day of the neighborhood egg hunt. We rounded up our crew to head down to the hunt by the pool.
Of course, they had to get their goofy on before we left.
Sadly, because of the rain, we haven't been able to get out and pose the kids under our flowering trees this spring. The yard is like a marsh and the poor little grass seeds that we planted 2 weeks ago are probably rotting out in the ground. 
Here was the neighborhood turn out when given the green light. Look at those kids run!
Rumor has it that there were 1500 eggs! I think they were all found within 5 minutes and about 100 of them made it back to this house.
Later, Grandma and Grandpa Seibert came down for a weekend of eating. We did put Grandpa to work while he was here and the rain stopped. We needed to remove the half dead tulip tree from the yard. When Jim planted the new tree 6 feet away from this tree, he noticed that there were no roots from the half dead tree. After some discussion, the men decided to just push the tree over instead of cutting it down.
The plan worked pretty well and we don't even have to worry about a stump. The tree was rotting from the inside out. I'm glad we planted the new one. I hope it lives. It definately won't die because of lack of water.
