Drive to Washington DC

Yesterday was a long driving day. Seems fitting that our odometer would roll over 200,000 KM during the trip. We went through seven states all together to get to our final destination for the next few nights. We started out in Massachusetts, through part of Connecticut, to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and ending up in Maryland. We have some good travelers!

Our route wasn’t the most direct route but we decided to take a stop over in Allentown PA to visit the Da Vinci Science Center. Every vacation we go on we take advantage of our Discovery Centre membership. With the membership we are included in the ASTC Passport Travel Program. This is the Association of Science – Technology Centers. It means that the large number of places included in the program allow us entry using our existing membership for our local centre. The Da Vinci Science Center is one of the ones included on the list and it’s how we found and choose the stop.

As we pulled in and started walking to the door we started looking for the pass. It was no where to be found! We had just renewed it shortly before the trip and it had arrived in the mail about a week ago. Somehow we neglected to bring it with us 😦 We called home to get my Father in Law to dig through so we could at least get a picture and see if that would work, but he wasn’t able to find it. We had just had a long part of the drive and didn’t want to continue on so we figured we would just suck it up and pay the admission to go in.

The friendly person at the front desk quoted us about $90 for our family. I asked if she had anyway to lookup ASTC memberships and explained the story. She even tried calling the Discovery Centre to verify but wasn’t able to get through. In the end she said no worries and just let us in on our word! I was blown away and so happy. I was feeling pretty bummed that we would have to spend that much money. She turned my day around very quickly by that simple act of kindness and I am so thankful.

Today we headed into Washington DC. It was a beautiful day even if it was a little hotter than I would like. At one point the temperature in the car was showing 37℃ and with the humidity it felt like around 45. We did a fair amount of walking, my Fitbit is showing at over 16,000 steps, but the kids did great for that as well.

We started out by visiting some of the Memorials we didn’t see last visit, the George Mason, Jefferson, and Roosevelt. They are all impressive and very awesome to see in person. They have a great view across the tidal basin of Washington and the Washington Memorial. Once we were done there we went to the Museum of Natural History as part of the Smithsonian Institute. We had been here last time but Alexandria really wanted to go through the Butterfly Pavilion inside which we skipped last visit, so we decided to do it this time.

From there we headed into Old Town Alexandria. We wandered a bit and ended up at Ben and Jerry’s for the first time. Such good ice cream, but a bit more than we intended to spend. There offer a free trolley ride up and down King Street so we used that as a way to see a bit more of the shops along that street. Even though we didn’t get to spend a huge amount of time it seemed like a beautiful little city, and there was lots more we wanted to do. There is some rain in the forecast so maybe we will make it back for some of the indoor things.

Washington DC – Jefferson Memorial

Visit Automattic East

This morning we left our friends house in New Brunswick and continued on with the next part of our vacation. While we were stopped in Bangor Maine I thought a next good stopping point would be Portland, or just outside Portland anyway.

I didn’t plan it in advance but on the drive started messaging people who regularly work out of the Automattic office there. Like the rest of my co-workers everyone I wrote was awesome, but no one was at the office. One of them was willing to let us in though so we could take a look around, but as it turns out just as we pulled in received a message from one of the other people who had just shown up. He gave us the tour and let us look around.

The kids played some foosball and ping pong, but I think their favourite part was looking through the swag!

Splashing in the Pool

We took the kids down to the local community pool this afternoon. Jen and I were sitting on the side with our legs in while the kids were swimming around. A chair opened up in the shade so I got up and moved over there.

Shortly after a little girl started splashing Noah in the face repeatedly right in front of Jen. Noah wouldn’t say anything but obviously didn’t like it so Jen said very politely, “Excuse me I don’t think he wants to be splashed.” She looked at Jen and stopped. “Thank you.”

Immediately the little girl proceeded to splash Jen, soaking her pretty well. As calm as can be, while obviously upset, Jen gets up and starts drying herself. “And I definitely didn’t want to be splashed!”

Meanwhile at a safe distance away in the shade I had a good laugh 🙂

Improvised Game Night

Our second night of vacation went a little different than planned, but still lots of fun. 

We are spending the first few days visiting friends and tonight was to be a game night. There has been thunder and lightening off and on for most of the afternoon and evening and our best guess is that there was a strike somewhere as the power went out. 

We didn’t let it stop us though between candles, tea lights, flashlights, and cell phones, we were able to still play!

Starting Out Rough

We’re getting ready to start our families summer vacation and so far it’s been off to a rough start. 

We took our car in to get it looked over before the road trip. We knew it needed some work. We didn’t know how much. As the work was being done more and more work needed was found. Not all of it was done due to money and time constraints. We got the most the most pressing things done and the mechanic feels it’s completely fine to take on the trip. 

After I had ran over and paid the bill for that today we received a call from the camp Alexandria has been working at. Yesterday she hurt her ankle pretty bad and it only got worse today. Things were swelling and sore and they were icing it often. So we went to pick her up early and off to the hospital to get things checked out. 

After about four hours of hanging out in the emergency room she had X-rays and we found out the results. Luckily nothing is broke as I initially feared, but she has soft tissue damage and will have to rest it and keep weight off it for a while. 

Even after four hours she was still in great spirits. 

Simplest Answer

For a few days now we’ve been having our printer print out in yellow instead of black. I was checking out settings, but it was happening from multiple computers so I didn’t really figure that was it.

It was some times printing black, but most of the time it was the yellow. We decided it was likely something wrong with the black ink cartridge we had put in. We order an no name type brand because they are much cheaper and we’ve had good luck for quite a while. Jen grabbed a new black cartridge from the box of four black cartridges I had ordered and found it was magenta and not black.

Turns out I ordered a box of one of each color instead of four blacks. So the off brand ink cartridges still work fine when you order the right ones.

Lunch Date

Everyone else went their separate ways today so Caile and I were left to our own devices for lunch. 

I think we made out OK

Evening Walks

Caught this sunset as Jen and I were out for one of our evening walks. Our quick walks are some of my favourite times during the day. 

Helpful Kids!

Last night we celebrated Canada Day and a friends little boys birthday party with a big crowd of awesome families! It was our first time at their home but it is located in a beautiful area. They have a big old yard that the kids all ran around in. We sat around a big fire cooking s’mores and chatting. At the end of the night they set off an impressive display of fireworks!

During one of the conversations we ended up talking about kids chores and it is always interesting to hear how other families do this. There are times I feel like our kids could pitch in more around the house and take on more responsibility and hearing from other families I may be right.

Our kids are very helpful though. It is rare that much of a stink is put up when we ask them to do their chores, or ask them to help out with extra things which may not be in their normal list.

For example the other night Jen and most of the kids went out and picked a flat of strawberries at a u-pick close by. Picking strawberries is not the funnest task in the world but they all went and had a good time and now we all get to share in eating the delicious berries!

This afternoon we went out and watched the movie The BFG. It was a really well done movie with a great story by Roald Dahl. It was a lot of fun, but by the time we got home it was already after our usual dinner time.

The kids all pitched in right away. Ella and Noah came out side with me to the garden where we gathered some baby spinach leaves to use for supper. This is the first bit of anything we’ve taken out of the garden so far this year. So rewarding! They had both helped plant it to begin with so just a really neat experience.

Inside Caile was making tea biscuits, with just the slightest help from Jen, for our dessert of strawberry shortcake. When back in Ella helped cut up wash and mash the berries for this as well. The best part of it is none of them were asked to do any of this, they all just wanted to! In the end we ate a delicious dinner with an equally good dessert that they all played a hand in help make and prepare.

So while sometimes I think they could do a bit more, I’m very thankful for my kids and their usual desire to help out around the house.