Thursday

We started off with a morning full of fevers. Xanny is a rubber ball when it comes to being sick. This morning he crashed and just as quickly he rebounded. A little blue sky and smiling kid can only mean one thing. Field trip!

I have been waiting a long time to go see this exhibit. It would completely and totally gross out just about everyone of my close friends and family with the exception of Kim and Xanny. (Shauna wouldn't even make it past the brochure.) Basically it is Chinese political (chain-smoking) prisoners who have "chosen" of their own "free-will" to "donate" their bodies to "science." At least that is how Marco explained it to our dinner guest tonight. You get the picture. My husband is a much more moral person than I am and boycotted the voyeuristic display and was serving the homeless soup downtown or doing some other good works in the world. I, on the other hand, grab my 2 and 4 year olds and said, "Hey kids, who wants to meet the REAL guts guy? Let's go." Over all, Kim and I thought there should be more education and less cool tricks. But my kids LOVED it - especially the dirty lungs.

After the bodies we moved on to birds. I walk over and see Kim snapping a lovely little picture of a dead bird in front of the . . .

That's right folks. Arlington VA has a the Berlin Wall - sort of. Behold below, the Berlin Wall and Kim's reinactment of the fall of the great wall. (She's a one woman revolution.) Speaking of the fall of the Berlin Wall, who here has seen one of our favorite international movies called "Goodbye, Lenin"? It came out about four years ago and should be added to your Netflix list.

FHE at Gravelly Point

Yep, it's time again for Gravelly Point. This is Marco's first time for plane watching. Xanny has decided that all airplanes deserve a salute. It takes a while to get anywhere in this city when your 4 year old has to stop and salute EVERY flying object in the DC sky.

Xanny's reaction.

Baby Nina's reaction.

(art shot of the day)

Watch this!

Cool.

Dinner at Gravelly

Are you sick of us yet? Then I give you Ben and Kristen. Zina and Ben are dancing the happy dance on the table because Ben just got the word that Kristen is planning on renewing his contract again this July.

Yummy Trader Joe's picnic and a pretty sunset. I love this city.

Here Kim is too busy with her babaganoosh to notice the very large plane sneaking up on her.

106.5

Just around 6:00 tonight I thought - Wow, what a slow day and nothing to post on my blog. Just then Xanny woke up from a nap burning up! He has been running a fever all week but seemed better all day until . . .106.5. Of course I had done my research when we first moved here and had located the closest urgent care "just in case." Of course when I called them tonight got a recording saying they were CLOSED FOR BUSINESS! After some scrambling on line and a call to another mom in the ward we found an urban urgent care somewhere down 395.

Here is floppy Xanny and a worried dad. I promise my camera just happened to be right there on the table next to the thermometer and I didn't make the boys pose for a picture before we left to save our child's life.

Here is our urgent care doctor that we pulled out of hat. In her own words she was "old school" and told me she doesn't hesitate to call DCFS if she thinks someone is a bad parent. She liked Marco and scared the crud out of me. She was finally convinced I was a good mother even though my son has a fever when Xanny told her that his white blood cells were trying to clear his lymph node of all the germs they had collected in their "bad guy germ jail." That is why his lumps on his neck were hard. In the first 10 minutes of the visit she was planning on turning me in. By the last 10 minutes she offered to write us a check to put towards medical school.

Does this kid look sick to you? It turns out he has a severe ear, sinus and throat infection. The doctor asked him repeatedly if his ears hurt. NO. "Now listen, little boy, I am not going to give you a shot. You can tell me if your ears are hurting." No. "How about your throat? Your throat hurts doesn't it? You can tell me - I'm not going to give you a shot." No, not even a little bit. (I guess I'm not such a bad mom after all.) What a party!

At the end of the long day Xanny get a bedtime story with Auntie Kimmy from his favorite book - the textbook for Bio 115. Goodnight, Xanny.

Uncle Boba

Xanny has given his immediate family up for adoption and running away with "Uncle Boba", a.k.a. Jared Clark who is an old friend from BYU days. Jared just finished a masters in fine art this month in Richmond, VA and stopped by for some TLC from XAN.

Here is the crew ordering lunch at the Tortilla Cafe. From left to right: Becca G., Ben H. (you can't really see him but that's OK.), Jared, Xanny, Baby Nina, Cindy Mindy-mindy and Kim (who is taking the lunch ordering process really seriously.)

Xanny's new family.

Walking home on Independence.

Ohhh, Kimmy and Uncle Boba. They would have cute babies.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

The Agony: Xanny's 104 fever that has lasted on and off again for the last 48 hours.



The Ecstasy: Xanny being well enough to run through the cloisters of the monastery.

The Agony: 13 across.
The Ecstasy: The 21 minute break from work and kids to do our daily cross word. (It's really easy.)

It takes a BYU ward to raise a child. Here is Cindy F. and Ben B. taking my kids on a catholic fieldtrip. Who knew all those years ago when we met in Provo that one day we would be chasing my rug-rats around DC?

The Agony: From the Basilica at Catholic University. This is a 40 foot tall mosaic of Jesus. Why do the Catholic get to have all the fun?

The Ectasy: Also from Catholic U. this is a Cuban madonna and child. I what one.

The Awakening

At the tip of Hain's Point on the shores of the Potomac is a waking giant. The Awakening is one of our great haunts - but not for much longer. The sculpture has been here for 28 years but was just purchased for $750,000 by a developer who will move it to new "planned water front development" south of the Wilson Bridge on the Maryland side of the Potomac. It is a shame it will be taken out of context of roaring airplanes from the western National Airport runway and speeding boat from the east in the busy Potomac harbor. Actually this facial expression just showed up the day after announcing the move. He was smiling before hearing the news.

Give me a hand.

Kim, Baby Nina and a thumb.

Uhh, gross.

Toe Trouble

Since Xanny was running a fever all day today poor Baby Nina had to be the stunt kid today. She really doesn't like giant hot toes. She tells me "Actually, mom, I only like little toes, my toes."

George in Marine I. Well, I don't really know if it is George because they fly him in a pack of choppers and have decoys run to and from the White House to Andrew's Air Force Base all the time. We are fortunate enough to live right in between the two locations. That is our house under his copper. Really.

Intellect and Intuition. Look at earlier post for a better description.