She Ran Calling Wildfire

The last thing Cindy said to me was, "What are you going to blog about in Utah?" Like nothing ever happens in Utah. Well how about THIS! I looked out the window and what did I see? Emily's mountain as on fire! Quickly I called her and told her I would be right over to rescue her. Luckily, I have experience in the rescuing Emily from a dangerous wildfire. About 4 years ago we loaded up the Davis mini van with all sorts of Asplund family memorabilia. This time Emily was much more efficient in her packing. I will say at the top of her fire emergency kit was a brand new bottle of NADS hair removal. (Sorry, Emily for the over share but it was just too good to pass up.) BTW - If you click on this picture you can see the black chard hillside were the fire already burned. Wildfires almost always burn up the mountain.

Editor's note: I am in California and don't have time to do a really nice job on this post so you will have to check in later for a much more polished version. I just hate getting behind.



This is the helicopter dumping water on the hot spots. See the red bucket.



Here Emily is so happy to see me that she is positively glowing.

But I think Emily would like this picture better than the last.

Bucket-O-Essentials with NADs right on top! Now that is planning ahead.

Light

Funny how light changes. Exhibit A) DC thunderstorm light.

Exhibit B) Utah back porch light. (Doen't this look bring back "Visiting grandma in Utah as a small child" feelings?)

Exhibit C) Airplane cockpit light.

Exhibit D) Cousins fort light.

Exhibit E) "Look, mom, I got a real bloody nose and I'm not telling you how!" light.

New TODAY only

New today only is a link to the real post of the day. Let's just say my HTML is HTM-Lame! Click HERE to see what we are up to.

MoTH - Moms on The Hill

Last week was the official Moms on the Hill picnic. MoTH as it is called for short is this amazing list serve for set up years ago to serve the needs of women raising kids on The Hill. There are between two and three thousand members -- all parents who currently live on The Hill now or have at some time in the past. I have found the list incredibly useful and, frankly, I do not understand why there is nothing comparable in Utah.

Basically it is RS for DC. If you have a baby someone will bring you meals for a week. If your mother-in-law is coming for a week with her pug, someone will find you a bed for her and Fido. If you have a question about ANYTHING someone on the MoTH list has the answer. Where to get best education for your 3 year old for just $7,000 a year, which island of the Caribbean is most kid friendly, who will get that squirrel out of the roof of your historic home without injuring the squirrel or the crown moulding- all these questions and many more can be answered with in 2 to 4 hours by someone on the MoTH list.

So why is this subject so entertaining (and so wordy a post for me?) I will just let the post speak for themselves. Tonight I give you MoTH:

1. On potty training . . .

We are taking our first steps in potty-training our 2.5 year old son. He never asks to do it in the toilet, or goes somewhere private to do it, etc. Other parents report that what really works is that famous "week to just let him run around naked"

Well - what if I don't have that week? He goes to pre-school 5 full days a week (and we work full-time), and it doesn't seem like 2-days-on-5-days-off will do the trick (and frankly, the thought of dedicating our normally busy weekends exclusively to potty training is not a happy one). So the question is - what other methods can be effective, given our circumstances, to get him well on his way to potty training? Ideally, we'd like to do this sooner than later. A sibling is coming in 6 weeks, and public school starts in 2 months. Thanks.

2. On nannies (always a popular topic). . .

ISO: Dads of a Guatemalan (?) 2 year old boy with a Nanny

My nanny shared with me some concerns regarding Spanish speaking nanny with a ~2 year old boy in Stanton Park today. This is the second time she has shared these concerns and I thought the parents should be made aware. She didn't know the boy's or the nanny's names, but is pretty sure he is adopted from Guatemala and has two dads. Please contact me off line for details. Thanks!!

3. On new mothers . . .

MoTHs Becky Lev and Cathy Davall welcomed daughter, Emerson, on 6/21 and would love MOW's [MOW's are Meals-on-Wheels] to help them through the sleeplessness!

Here's their information: Names: Becky & Cathy, 2 adults, no greenpeppers or mayo- we eat pretty much everything else and love Thai food.Please deliver in disposable dishes. Please deliver at 6:30p.m. unless you discuss a more convenient time with us. If you have any questions about MOW's, please don't hesitate to contact either of us.

Thanks for cooking!

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There it is. BTW- I am taking something organic over to Becky and Cathy tomorrow. I love this city.

Hot Town.

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty.
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head.
It's 97 degrees and 95% humidity. What do you do with a couple of sweaty kids? Two things . . . First cross the bridge to Iwa Jima and go to the Tuesday night Marine march. Talk about sweat, 300 men in full wool uniform. As luck would have it my camera battery was dead so Marco was kind enough snap pictures with his palm pilot. Quite frankly I think it created the perfect feel for the uber-muggy evening. (It felt something akin to walking through warm jello.)




Here is Xanny talking to the 21 gun salute guys about the wounded warrior we met a couple of days ago who had been shot in Faluja, Iraq. I don't know if this marine couldn't understand Xan or if he didn't think a 4 year old would know anything about someone getting shot in Iraq but he seemed completely unfazed by the idea. And that is all I am going to say about that.

The second thing you do with kids in Washington DC when it is 97 degrees with 95% humidity is . . . leave Washington DC and take the kids to UTAH! (where it's 95 degrees and 5% humidity. But they've got cherries on the trees when you walk down the sidewalk.) More pictures of our travels forth coming.

You know you're in DC when . . .

1. You know you're in DC when you find a flying donkey in your neighbors yard one day. (ps. We lost Zina's nice red hat today somewhere on the grounds of the Capital. Please keep your eyes open for it if you are in the area.)

2. You know you're in DC when as you are walking down the street you see a guy in a wheel chair with a broken leg and when your 4 year old asks him what happened he answers "I got shot in Iraq." Wow! He even showed us where they stapled him up after surgery. I think his lower leg was shattered and this is just the spot where they went in to do the reconstruction. Needless to say Xanny had lots of questions about the war - as do many of us. Who exactly is the bad guy and will the Americans win?

3. You know you're in DC when the nice young soldier's shirt has this logo on it. You can find out more by going to http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/. We found it very informative.

Here is Xanny contemplating bad guys

4. You know you're in DC when you see several teepees on the busiest street in the city. This is in front of the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian. It is a strange place that more closely resembles a fancy casino than a kiva. But that is a story for another day.

And finally 5. You know know you're in DC when exactly next to the teepee you see the filming of the final episode of FAT MARCH a new reality TV show due out this August. The producer yelled at me when I took this picture so I of course took another just to show my dislike of the whole thing. (Then Xanny got into an argument with her about how her smoking was slowly killing her. He said he saw her dirty lungs at The Bodies exhibit and she should stop today. As I dragged him away I heard her say to a camera guy that what he said hurt more than any one else's objections to her smoking. That's my boy.)

From what I could gather they took 10 or so morbidly obese people and marched them 575 miles to the Capital and then made them stand on a giant scale to see who lost the most weight. I happened to drive past later and noticed that Michael won with a total weight loss of 80 pounds. I think the people sitting in the sun on the front row are the ones who dropped out before making it to DC. Discuss.

So much more happened today in DC that I can't get to it all. We started out the door to walk down to the Mall to see the World's Children's Festival. It was a complete muggy hot dud. But life with kids is just like serving a mission - just have to go to work and talk to a few strangers then botta-boom botta-bing, you get a miracle.

Brioche & Betty Jo!

We have our Grandma Betty visiting us on her way to Maine. Of course we took her to the market for a Capital Hill breakfast - crown brioche and gherkins. Fancy! You can see the market in the background with bright blue scaffolding around it.





My kids love pickles but they make them wink! Xanny is going to be a cook or a reality TV idea guy. He can almost daily be heard saying something like, "You know what is really, really tasty? Pickles and sugar cookies where the pickle is ON the cookie and then you eat it together. That's really, really tasty."

Later in the afternoon we headed down to the WWII memorial. It is between the Washington and the Lincoln but built low and wide so it will not block the view of the other memorials. Marco says it looks just like a Soviet Block memorial that are all over Russia. As luck would have it we happened upon one of my all time favorite things - A WEDDING PARTY.
I really like bridesmaid #2 and her hoochie attitude.

Tomorrow we have to say good bye to Grandma. I would quote from Where the Wild Thing Are, (Please don't go. We'll eat you up we love you so.) but did you know that she doesn't like that book? She thinks it is really creepy. Instead we will quote from Zina. "Let's pretend that I am Tinkerbell and you are Tinkerbell's Grandma Betty - OK mom? That will be funny." Tomorrow is also P-day in South Africa so you should write Katie tonight. tesserkate@gmail.com. She got transferred last week and is back in her old area of Berea. She will be home in August so you need to write her today!!! (Hi Katie-bell)

Marines night out - 8th St.

Editor's note: This post is dedicated to Marsha P. because she loves a man in uniform and Annie Stucki because she thinks I will walk up to just about anyone and take their picture. Yeah, so?

The scene is a weekend night on 8th St. - Barracks Row. On Friday nights the Marines put on a parade inside the barracks for special guest and the public. Consequently, it is an evening of stepping out. The street has an old fashioned feel anyway but when you throw a bunch of service men in uniform wondering around, hanging out in bars and picking up on the ladies - it is positively 1945.

As I was walking down the street this nice Marine asked me if I knew where I was supposed to go to get information on tonight's performance. Just then he offered me his arm and told me he would escort me the two blocks down the street to the right spot. Uhhhh? Marco, where are you? (I ditched him at home with my two screaming kids. And look where it got me.)Dear Marsha P. Ellis,

I am sending you this nice boy in the mail. Please feed and water. Don't say I never did nothin' fer ya.

Love, Andi These girls were a crack up. I asked if I could snap a picture and in one second they struck a pose.

This girl has found herself a military man and a great big shiny rock on her finger. Check out the bling! D.C. wouldn't be D.C. without the pimple-faced youth choir tours EVERYWHERE. By a show of hands, how many of you came to DC on a youth tour? (I confess, I am guilty.)

If you look closely you can see a reflection of me taking a picture of these guys in their shoes. It looks regulation to me.

Stand-By.

IndependenceKids is temporarily closed due to POTTY TRAINING. Stand by for developments. By far kid #2 is a piece of cake compared to kid #1. I just sit her on the front porch on her potty during rush hour. She sits and watches the cars, dogs, bikes and people until all the pee pee comes out. She has nearly a perfect record in terms of dry unders in the week since she decided to ditched the diapers. VIVA LA REVOLUCION.

The Land of Sneed

Today was running a little slow so I just couldn't resist taking Xanny to Sneed's on 8th & eye st. for a real Marine Barracks Row haircut. This is the same place Marco got his stylish do a couple of weeks ago. And it was worth every cent of the ten dollar kid's cut!

I have to say, Xanny practically glowed in this place. No, really, he was whiter than the towel wrapped around his shoulders. Sneed didn't really look too excited about the camera until I told him Xanny's sister is serving overseas and she checks on him via the internet. I didn't tell him she was serving as a Mormon missionary serving in South Africa.

One of my favorite details was the price list. Look closely. Does Sneed always charge George W. double? Maybe that is for a different kind of bush. Personally I would charge "W" double for just about anything. It's the least I can do for my kids who will be paying double for the rest of their lives for having "W" for the last eight years.

If you know anything about our neighborhood you know this picture is a bit of a mixed metaphor. No kid who's mom bought him a "rebuild eastern market" tee-shirt off the MoTH list gets his hair cut at Sneed's. But MoTH (Mom's on The Hill) is a story for another day. You know how I LOVE Utah obituaries - in DC my daily fix is MoTH.

What do you do with a 4 year old after he gets his first real Marine haircut? Well, walk him directly across the street to get a picture with a real Marine. I love this city.

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Sneed, Xanny and Reverend King.