July 4th!

We had BEAUTIFUL weather on July 4th!  We walked along the mall and saw the inner workings of the parade marchers getting ready and then found a good spot along the parade route.  I thought the parade was really nice, but the kids were mostly intrigued by their new walkie-talkies that Grandma brought.  We made a BBQ feast, enjoyed a World Cup game and then went to watch the fireworks.  All the Brent kids go to the park around the corner to watch the fireworks so it's a very fun reunion.  Charlie played catch with Ian until it was too dark to see and only stopped when the fireworks started.

 We went to a "lavender farm" -  which sounded quaint, but it really just ended up being some person's house and they had a small patch of lavender, some scissors for you to chop away and some lavender lemonade.  The lemonade and the haystacks were the highlights...The really sad thing was how many people were there! I think we had all bought the same groupon in search of some respite from the city.


If we were in Provence it might have looked more like this:

Instead it looked like this!

It was painfully obvious that we weren't in Provence, but Carlos did accompany me on a work trip to France a few weeks ago.  I was gone almost 10 days from the kids!  The longest ever.  They survived - and more impressive is that Carlos' mom and Sandra survived taking care of them! Sofia was happy to nurse again as soon as I got home which was a relief because I would have been really annoyed had I pumped 4x a day in various locations for 10 days and dumped all the milk only to find that she stopped nursing.

I haven't spent much time in Paris previously and I kindof wanted to think it was passe to love the city.  But it REALLY is that nice!  We had an unexpected twist of events when we arrived to the hotel at 7am very tired and looking haggard.  I had used all my Starwood points to book a hotel in Paris because I couldn't stomach the cost of Parisian hotels during peak season.  When we arrived we were informed that there wasn't a room for us..."So when will it be ready and can we leave our bags while we walk around?"  "No - you don't understand - we don't have a room at all for you!"  To make up for it they treated us to breakfast, paid for a taxi to their partner hotel, paid for the room, returned my Starwood points and gave me points for our stay.  Not bad!

 

We walked around the city, visiting random museums we came upon.  We had delicious food and got to watch France beat in the World Cup.  One of our favorite stops was enjoying an unbelievable cup of hot chocolate at Cafe de Flore.  Again, I thought it was all hype, but it really was that good!

my lunch

From Paris we went to the Champagne region and stayed in Reims where my work meeting was taking place.  We happened to arrive during the music festival and got to enjoy a light show on the famous cathedral. It was crazy awesome.

light show on the cathedral

I know close nothing about Champagne so the various tours were quite enlightening.  We were treated to a tour at the meeting's host's cellar, Moet, and then dinner and 5 tasting champagnes in the cellar.  Despite my claustrophobia I couldn't help but enjoy it.  The cellar has 16 miles of underground cellar tunnels where the champagne is stored.  They aren't allowed to dig anymore as they'd likely hit another cellar's tunnels.  The entire city seems to have champagne tunnels under it!

down to the cellar....

the underground champagne highway 

they actually store the champagne this way - dust and all!

the end to our tough tour

From there I went to meeting on the outskirts of London.  It was my least favorite part of the trip - all work and no play.  I had to stay for a Saturday and miss a college roommate reunion which just made that part of the trip all the more frustrating!

Summer Time!

I love this time of year when we can be outside - without bugs and without sun stroke!  There are so many fun events and year-end parties.  The Duddington Block party always embodies this start to summer in the best way - pony rides, open fire hydrants, water balloon fights, inflatable pools in the middle of the street and plenty of food and beer....This year a guy showed up with an owl and a falcon.  Owls are Diego's favorite so he was pretty excited.  I think the highlight for Charlie was a middle schooler on the block who had built his own go-cart (and drone!) which he let the boys play with and ride on.  Yes - he actually built a drone and was flying it down the block.  It had a camera attached to it and I guess he uploads the footage to youtube.  I'm not sure who possibly wants to watch hours of neighborhood surveillance footage, but it did get me wondering what the skies will look like in a few years....

water balloon fight

Thanks to Joe and Elizabeth, the boys got to practice batting IN the nationals stadium.  Sadly Big Bill wasn't around, but they did get to hang out with Teddy.  It goes without saying that the boys came back glowing with excitement.

batting at the nats stadium!

last little league game of the season

Charlie had his first piano recital a week ago.  It was scheduled in the middle of Sofia's meltdown hour so only Carlos got to accompany him.  He didn't seem phased at all by the whole experience;  he had soccer class, took off his shin guards and cleats and grabbed his piano book.  Clearly he isn't a perfectionist in his playing, but at least he is better than me!  Check him out: http://youtu.be/tKX7fNYhaLw

Diego is absolutely hooked on kickball.  The other day when we were playing the 100th round of indoor kickball he ran right into the stair post.  It hurt and he was annoyed. So annoyed in fact that he demanded Carlos take all "the corners out of the house."  He was sick of stubbing his toe or smacking into corners.  He just wanted them all out.  He was equally passionate about the chocolate covered bugs that Carlos ordered for his class.  Carlos found chocolate covered worms and scorpions and thought it might round out the bug module in class.  11 out of 15 kids ate them!  so brave!

Diego negotiating kickball teams with the big kids

Here are a few family photos we took after our father's day brunch (which was yummy, but not very relaxing with Sofia around)...

Strawberry picking with the boys!  Charlie was quite diligent, but Diego just trailed behind us eating strawberries.  12 lbs later we headed to the playground section of the farm...

Soccer year end party

Brent spring concert....Diego is far left (because we were late and I had to push him up there).  So pathetic that we are always late!!

Baseball, kickball, baseball, kickball.....

Now that the weather is nice, we've been enjoying lots of outdoor sports and adventures.  Carlos, Charlie and Diego ran in the Capitol Hill Classic race a few weekends ago (time is slipping by).  Diego did the fun run, Charlie ran the 3k and Carlos did the 10k.  We all cheered Carlos on (who did great despite catching a stomach bug on the way back from Colombia and having to do frequent bathroom stops....).  Seeing Carlos run made Charlie excited for his race and he did awesome!  Charlie ran the WHOLE way which blew my mind.  He ran 10:04 mile pace which seems pretty awesome to me.  Diego, on the other hand, didn't enjoy the fun run much.  maybe next year....

Charlie is absolutely hooked on baseball while Diego has the kickball bug.  We have at least one meltdown each day by one of them wanting to play more than the 8,000 innings that we play on a daily basis.   We usually play some version of baseball or kickball before school, on the blacktop after school, at X park on the way home, in the back yard and then upstairs before bed.  Diego likes his kickball pitches "slow and tiny bit bouncy" and, given how small our backyard is, they lose at least one ball a day over the fence.  Two of the three neighbors will throw them back, but our not-very-nice neighbor seems to be collecting children's balls.  The other day Charlie kicked his nice soccer ball over the fence and was heartbroken because he knew she wouldn't throw it back.  He went inside, found my ipad, found the amazon app icon and ordered himself a new soccer ball.  Thanks to "1 click ordering" this all happened within a few minutes and the shipping confirmation email was the first I knew about the order....At least I need to teach him to use prime items only because I just spent $5 on shipping...

Sofia is a total treasure up until about 5pm when she starts melting down.  She still isn't into toys much, but she loves to just cruise around and find random (often lethal) items she can pick up and carry.  She also likes to be picked up by random people.  She seems to test them out for a few seconds to decide if she likes them and, if not, dives out of their arms.  Some moms she really likes - in fact, she prefers to stay with them than come to me!  She also adores Carlos.  Carlos had to take her two days last week when Sandra called in sick and she thoroughly enjoyed herself.  She came back all smiles.  She still doesn't say much at all (Hi and Bye), but she jabbers a lot and still screams to get what she wants.  why talk when you can just scream?!

Here she is in the treehouse, which she LOVES.

She likes to be part of the action - including trying to wrestle with the boys or do body slams on sofa cushions.  Here she is getting tackled by Diego

And of course she likes to brush the boys' teeth....




Last week was science night at school and Diego's class studied bugs.

Diego was super into the bug module at school.  They had so many cool bugs in the classroom, including luna moths which we learned only live for 1 week because they have no mouth!  He's been collecting bugs everywhere and insists on keeping them in cups around the house.  I'm pretty sure a few rolly-pollies have escaped into our house....

Carlos gets the good sport award for coming to my 15th college reunion last weekend.  It was fun and nice to have a weekend to ourselves.  I like seeing people, but I also love to see what is new on campus.  The renovated art gallery is phenomenal and the addition of a one acre farm on the edge of campus thanks to Alice Waters is so awesome.  The farm has a brick oven and every friday night they serve pizza with toppings from the garden.  That pretty much sums up my dream meal.  We tasted the pizza and it was so good that it might rivals uncle buddy's pizza.