On the first day of Christmas break we did lots of stuff, including helping with an outreach at a soup kitchen.
On the second day of Christmas break we opened presents- this was Christmas day!
On the third day of Christmas break, I can not remember what we did. I do not know if we did anything special! I know that Steven had a swim practice in the morning, and we spent the day playing with our new toys. I can't remember going anywhere special, though.
On the fourth day of Christmas break, swim practice was canceled due to high winds. The kids swim in an outdoor pool which is winterized by being covered with a giant dome of sorts. They nickname it "the bubble". When it's too windy, they don't allow swimming because I suppose there is a risk of the bubble crashing down.
Since we didn't have swimming, we went to a movie. We saw an early showing of Tangled, which is based on the Rapunzel story. It was really great! Usually I'm bored out of my mind at kid movies, but this was very clever and fun. Josie sat and watched the whole thing like a champ. I think this movie held the attention of all the kids in the entire theatre, and I didn't hear any of the crying, fighting, yelling, talking, etc. that you might hear at any animated movie... It was a very fun outing! And that was the Main Event for the day.
On the fifth day of Christmas break, Steven and Isabel both had swimming. The fun event of this day was shopping and eating out. Isabel and I went to the mall to take care of some returns and do a little shopping, and then we met everyone else at the Silver Diner restaurant for the Family fun night. Every Tuesday they have special entertainment for families, plus they give out free milkshakes to kids who are members of the "kids club." Kate passed along her membership to Josie, who enjoyed her very own Chocolate Shake. (Kate ordered an adult sized cookies and cream, so don't worry that she missed out!) The special entertainment included crafts and coloring at a special table away from our own table, staffed by a restaurant worker, and balloon animals and face painting by a local man who does this stuff. The kids had a lot of fun. The boys had him make light sabers, and Isabel had a double-bladed light saber. Josie had a wand with a special heart balloon. Tragically, the balloon popped when we got home. She told me with her little quivering chin "my heart balloon all gone." Ahhhh, poor thing. So sad. Luckily she forgot all about it within about 30 minutes. That's when everyone else's balloons started to pop and lose their shapes.
On the sixth day of Christmas break, Steven and Isabel had swimming practice again. That wasn't enough chlorine for one day, so we headed out to the recreational pool in the afternoon as well. This was a great treat for Josie, who watches the older siblings swim all the time, yet she never gets to swim herself. They are all in practices or lessons, and there's just not a lot out there for a two-year-old to do that doesn't involve ME swimming as well. And poor Josie LOVES swimming. She really does. So we all went to a very big indoor aquatic center that is about 20 minutes away from our house to spend two hours in the pool. Kate didn't go with us, but Steven and Isabel each brought a friend. This aquatic center has big waterslides and little waterslides, along with water squirting features, and water buckets dumping water on your heads. All sorts of good stuff for serious swimmers. The "big kids" went on the big slides most of the time. Luke took turns dragging Mac and me up to the big slides too, where we would "race" him to the bottom. Mac and I also took Josie on the little slides. She loved those. Most of the time she didn't get dunked in the process, but when she did get dunked she was really good about it. She didn't cry or throw up in the pool! Anyway, that was a fun afternoon, and really tiring too!
On the seventh day of Christmas break, we headed in to the city to visit a museum. Kate had to get up early to come along. She wasn't too pleased about that, but what's a "family outing" if she's not there? Anyway, we took the subway in to town and decided what museum to go to when we got to the mall. We decided to go to the Museum of American History since it looked the least crowded and since I couldn't remember going there since the big remodel. We got there just as it opened, and were able to see the flag that flew over the Baltimore harbor in the war of 1812. It was really impressive! We touched on all parts of the museum, but at a very fast pace. We all enjoyed the First Ladies' dress exhibit. It was so interesting to see how fashion has changed and reflected the historical times throughout the years. Josie loved seeing all the dresses, of course. We also went through the transportation display, which was a lot of fun, and the military history display, which was impressive. We ate lunch there, and since Josie was really causing some trouble by that point, we left early to return home. We were only at the museum for about 2 hours not counting lunch, and that was probably as much as she could tolerate for now! She is much less patient than I remember Luke being (or even the twins for that matter) when touring the museums... Maybe that's why we rarely go!
Here are some pictures of our trip downtown. First we snapped a shot in front of the Washington Memorial. We've lived out here so long and we've never been up to the top of that thing! Someday, maybe... Also, note to self: Never start off a trip to a museum with a toddler NOT strapped into a stroller.
That itsy bitsy person next to the sculpture is Isabel. This is in front of the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
Luke, the clown. So happy that Mom and Dad are buying a new car.
Mac and I were able to go out for a date later on this day. Kate watched the kids and put Josie to bed. Even though Josie is difficult to manage in a museum, and she is known to cry for 40 minutes or more without stopping which strapped into her car seat, she is still relatively easy to put to bed. She loves her cozy blankets. She just likes to be in her crib. This is a fairly recent development, and I know that it will not last. But... we are taking advantage of her love for her crib for as long as we can! Mac and I went to see a movie. I cringed as he paid $11 per ticket to watch The Black Swan but ultimately we enjoyed the movie, I guess. It was a strange movie. It's not really exactly my style, but it was recommended by some of Mac's fellow residents. Now he can join in at the conversation around the water cooler with the cool kids... This was the first date for us in over a year! Unless you count the work Christmas party that we went to. Which I don't, even though it was a fairly entertaining evening... Nonetheless, Mac and I, sans children. I don't know if Date Night will become something we practice more frequently, but who knows! If I plan it, I suppose it will happen. But I'm not sure I want to plan yet another thing...
On the eighth day of Christmas break, Steven and Isabel had a swim practice. It was the last day of the year 2010. We didn't have any big plans for the day. Mac and I suspected that Kate would want to do something with her friends. Even though she started out having no plans at all, by dinnertime she was debating between three different invitations to different get-togethers... She chose a quiet sleepover with a friend who lives near to us. I think she had a good time watching scary movies all night... The fun event for the kids during the day was going to Toys R Us to spend their gift cards that Grandma sent in the mail. Each of them had $25! Toys R Us was pretty cleaned out, but the kids managed to find things to buy.
Steven bought a couple of racing cars from the MarioKart product line (Luigi and Mario). He still has some money left on his card and he wants to buy the same Pokemon card set that he bought Luke for the Secret Santa gift exchange. We'll have to check in at Toys R Us another day for that one. They were completely sold out of Pokemon cards!
Luke bought yet another lightsaber (it's red and makes noise) and a Nerf Football.
Isabel bought a gumball machine, a keychain sized gumball machine, and a skull toy that tells you the answer to any question you ask. For instance, you ask the skull, "Am I cute" and it will say "Menacinely no". So on and so forth. Endless fun.
Josie bought an ice cream cone toy (not real ice cream- it's a stacking toy) and a Cinderella doll.
So, that was Friday, New Years' Eve, 2010.
On the ninth day of Christmas Break, Steven had swimming practice in the afternoon. This was New Year's Day. He is able to say he went to swim practice on the last day of 2010 AND the first day of 2011. It was a warm and sometimes rainy day. After practice was done, we decided to go to Zoo Lights to see the Christmas lights display at the zoo and see some of the animals. We brought Kate with us again, almost kicking and screaming! Oh well... Zoo lights was kind of a let down, actually. There were some Christmas light displays, but nothing like the walk through display we did one year at a nature center, and not as fun as the drive-through display that is closest to our house. (And, DRIVE THROUGH which can be very nice during the cold weather snaps.) But we figured we should try it out... The only parts of the zoo that were open to visitors were some of the indoor animal habitats. We started out with the small mammal house, which is usually a hopping place full of all sorts of rodents. We did see a very cute armadillo and some porcupines and a few squirrels, but the most active rodents were the mice that were sneaking into all the enclosures to eat the food the animals left behind... The Ape house wasn't much better. There was only one ape visible, and he just sat there staring at everyone. He didn't even care about the mice crawling around the floor of his cage. Hey, at least he was awake! The only other ape (maybe a chimp) had covered himself up with a SHEET and was apparently out for the night. Why did they give him a sheet to play with? Anyway, we really didn't see many animals, and the decorations were underwhelming, but the kids really liked their dinners they ate at the zoo's cafeteria. We went straight home after dinner because we'd forgotten Steven's insulin. We brought an insulin pen, but it was empty. Oops. The insulin pen with insulin in it was left at home... Anyway, now we can check Zoo Lights off of our list of community events to attend! That leaves seeing the National Christmas Tree all lit up on the mall. Brrrrr... Saving that one for next year.
Here are a couple of pictures from Zoo Lights.
On the tenth day of Christmas Break we gave Kate the day off. She didn't have to go to a fun family event with us, but she did have to go to church with us! In the afternoon Steven had a playdate with two friends. Isabel tried to call her friends to arrange her own playdates, but they were all busy. Oh well. After the playdates were done, we went to Chuck E Cheese. That place is wild. Really wild. We were very lucky to get a table, as we arrived just before a big rush of people. We got the last open table in the place! Anyway, we were less lucky with getting the pizza order delivered to our table. They apparently skipped our order or something, because we were number "8" and Mac asked where our order was when he saw number "14" being served... Eventually they brought out our order, about an hour after we placed it, and the manager gave us 100 tokens as an apology... Anyway, the kids were playing games the whole time, so they didn't miss the food, but it did extend our time at Chuck E Cheese by a while... Since we got these "free" tokens, Mac let me play the annoying game where you drop a token down onto a tray that is supposed to push the token against other tokens causing tokens on another tray to fall off the edge into a tray below. When that happens, you will get tickets depending on how many tokens you drop into the bottom tray. Mac hates the game because they are clearly using magnets to hold the tokens onto the bottom tray. He's seen so many people just put token after token into it, and no tokens drop ever. It's like playing the slots. Well, anyway, we had all these "free tokens" so we played the game for a while, using up probably around 15 tokens. And... even though we didn't drop too many tokens off of the bottom tray, at one point the machine just started spitting out tickets. Josie was standing right there, pulling just so as the tickets were being spit out of the machine. She carried all her tickets over to Izzy who was feeding tickets into the ticket reader which spits out a receipt that can be turned in for prizes. In total Josie got 248 tickets! It was too funny. I don't know why she got so many tickets, because we barely dropped any tokens, but... Maybe the machine saw this cute 2 year old and just couldn't resist! Anyway, after that we turned in the tickets for some cheapo prizes, and headed home.
That was the end of the ten days of Christmas break. We made the most out of it, even though we weren't able to go anywhere big this year!
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