Gramma Mindy's First Spring Visit 2013

Why not follow up my winter flashback detailing Gramma Mindy's last winter visit with a post about her first Spring vist!

Once again we visited the tried and true National Building Museum. This time they had an exhibit that featured a bunch of really cool, uniquely-shaped blocks that you could build stuff with!

Mom and I sat down at a table that you could build small-scale stuff on...which was a lot of fun, until you realized what lay in wait for us around the corner...

That's right! Look at these enormous blocks! We were able to put together some massive creations! Not just by utilizing the floor, mind you, but we also hooked the pices into the walls around us in order to really create some unique structures...

...which I then happily smashed.

There was also a really cool motion detector that created blocks on a video screen based on where you were standing, and they crashed down around you when you moved the right way. Super cool! You can see the green outline on the wall that Mom created by standing on the blue square!

I was more enthralled with the physical blocks, both in building with them, and crawling around in the pile of them.

Mom put a lot of thought into the ones that she created, so while I tried to refrain from destroying hers...I promised nothing.

FLASHBACK: Gramma Mindy's final Winter 2013 Visit (aka The Air and Space Museum II!)



As the winter season was wrapping up, Gramma Mindy came down to visit us, and we ended up heading down into Virginia to see the Air and Space Museum's Annex out near Dulles. It has a silly name that I can neither pronounce, nor spell, so I will save myself the humiliation and just leave it at that.

We got to the museum and discovered that it was essentially a giant aircraft hangar where they store the larger full-scale planes that don't fit into the museum in DC. There were also lots of cool exhibits and stuff to see.

One of the first planes we saw was an old World War II plane that had a scary mouth with lots of teeth on the front of it. Dad tried his best to convince me that the plane was just painted that way in order to intimdate the enemy (it sure was working on me!) and it took a lot of prodding before I'd finally walk down the ramp to look at the rest of the museum, and walk under the plane. (I never felt fully comfortable walking by it, but I did my best to be brave. Just putting the picture up there gives me the heebie jeebies)

Luckily we got past that little speed bump because there was still so much to see! We got to walk along the upper catwalks and get a good look at a lot of different planes that were hanging from the ceiling. Gramma Mindy and I did a lot of hanging out, and she told me a lot about the planes we were seeing!

We got to look at a lot of different things that touched on a lot of interests....from actual planes, to missiles, to models of planes and space suits.

After getting to sit in a flight simulator for a little while, Mom, Dad and I waited in line for a chance to sit in an actual airplane and use the controls. I slid right in, and Dad crammed himself into the seat next to me. I did a very good job listening to instructions and used the controls very gently. I think I'd make a pretty good pilot, right?

At the very least I'd be a pretty adorable pilot, yeah?

Mom did a really good job going through the little information plaques that were posted around the hangar. They gave a lot of facts and history, and Mom went through them with me. I learned a lot of cool stuff!

Apparently some of the Tuskegee Airmen were there that day, and they were kind of a big deal. So that was pretty cool. :-)

Dad and I took a few minutes to check out some planes on our own (and goof around a little bit)_ while Mom and Gramma Mindy grabbed us a table and some food at the McDonald's in the museum.

And just in case you thought I couldn't goof around on my own...

And one of the coolest things that the museum has was tucked in the back in its own special hangar...that's right! It's the retired space shuttle Discovery! Dad was super excited about this one and took something like eight million pictures. You can tell that I was pretty much done for the day, an was certainly done taking pictures. :-)

I was excited to finally get out to Dulles in order to check out this very cool, and unique museum. I really enjoyed it, and can't wait to go back and see it again! Maybe this time, I'll go inside one of the crazier flight simulator rides that REALLY shakes you up!

Winter FLASHBACK: Visit To Gramma Debbie's in Connecticut

To celebrate the seemingly endless cold weather, I wanted to post a couple shots from the last visit I took to Gramma Debbie's for the winter time...It seems like it took forever for the weather to get warmer, and now that it has, it sometimes feels like we skipped Spring entirely and went straight to Summer!!

Unlike here in DC, Connecticut gets LOTS of snow. It's a good thing I got a new snowsuit for the year! The snow was SO deep! That is Gramma's pool behind me! Look how close I am to the upper railing! Yep...that's how deep the snow was!

The snow was also deep enough (and the perfect consistency) to lay down and make some perfect snow angels! It was pretty obvious that I was having a blast!

After all that playing in the snow, I got to spend time inside warming up with my cousin Nicholas...I SORT OF did a good job sharing the couch and blanket with him. He obvious had an easier time doing that than I did.

2013 Kite Festival....This year with actual kite flying!

Once again we went down to the National Mall with my brand new kite that I got for Christmas!

This year, we managed to get the kite up into the air! If you recall from LAST YEAR we had some trouble getting the kite up. Granted, I think that part of the problem was that we had bought a lousy kite, but the day also wasn't that windy. This year was gorgeous out, AND we had some heavy windy moments!

We got the kite up so high!

Dad helped me get it up by using his patented method of finessing the string once we got it up there!

Once he got it up in the air, he handed me the string, and I got to fly the kite myself!

We had it so far up, that it was a little scary, and I was sometimes worried, but ultimately I had a lot of fun flying it!

Next up, Mom got in on the action, and she also did a really good job of getting the kite up there, too!

We were both flying it when it was way up in the air, and even though there were a lot of other kites around, we did a pretty good job at not bumping into anyone else!

We had a lot of fun flying the kite together, and whenever the wind died down...

...it was my job to go and grab the kite and bring it back so that Mom could relaunch it again.

I even helped her relaunch it! It wasn't easy, but once I got the hang of it...

...we were back in business, and I ran around to get out of the way.

Once Mom had the kite settled nice and high against the gorgeous backdrop of that perfect sky, with the Capitol in the background....

She nudged it even higher!

I could barely keep track of it, since it was so high up!

She handed me the string again, and I can't tell you how exhilarating it was to be in control of it, flying it around the sky, and working so hard to keep it up there. It was nice when the wind settled into a nice pattern, and you could just minimally nudge the string to make sure it was kept up there...

Sometimes I got so worried because of how high up it was, but the fun always overwhelmed the feelings of stress that I had...

Even though I was having lots of fun, inevitably I got bored and started running around the Mall.

Dad caught me a few times, and we hung out together so we could rest...

...but only long enough for me to get back up and have him chase me again!

Thanks so much for my kite gift (I think my Great Aunt may have given it to me) and thanks for taking me out to fly a kite, Mom and Dad!

My take home hibernation project!

Who writes about homework? Just me cuz we make it awesome! That's right...we had another take-home project, and it referenced the hibernation station chapter that we had been focusing on at school. We had to choose an animal that hibernates, and then make a diorama about it. My first diorama! Cool, right!? When I first proclaimed that I wanted to do one on the frog, Dad thought I was nuts...he didn't know that some frogs hibernate. Well, I taught him something that day! :-)

We decided to print out little frog bodies on green paper, which I cut out...

While I did that, Mom put brown tape on a shoe box to make it look more swampy.

Once I finished cutting out both frogs from their green paper...

...Dad helped me get some frog face stickers, and I added them on to the cut out frogs to give them a bit more personality.

Mom and I glued the frogs to the bottom of the "swamp" we had built, and we added some colored puff balls, because really...making regular looking rocks would have been dull. I'd rather my rocks look pretty, right? Don't you agree?

Dad and I added some grass (I later added a tree, not pictured, for no real reason other than to make it look more aesthetically pleasing) and Mom put some plastic wrap on there to simulate water (frogs hibernate under water) and voila! It was done! Pretty cool, huh? We all thought it came out pretty awesome!

I wrote on the bottom of the diorama: Frog By Sam...and Dad helped me write: "The frogs are happy because they are underwater hibernating in the forest." I dictated it, and Dad wrote it down just like I asked him to...

The Elephant Parade!

Late one night a couple weeks ago, Mom and Dad kept talking about an elephant parade. I thought they were a little nuts, but hey...I got to go on the Metro train, ride downtown past my bedtime, and hang out in the cold watching PBS shows on my Dad's phone...even if that was all I ended up doing, it was pretty cool...

It turns out my Mom and Dad were NOT crazy...the circus was in town, and to help promote it, they had a small parade from downtown through some of Washington, DC, and ending at the building that they held the circus at.

We waited for awhile (They were running late)and I was getting a bit cold and impatient...but when they finally showed up, it was TOTALLY worth the wait!

Here, you can see that they are wearing light up circus badges on their heads. There are also some pretty girls on the elephants that were waving at people.

It really was an elephant parade. They walked right in front of us, which was super neat. After having seen elephants on TV, and at the zoo, it was wild seeing them up close, and in the middle of the city like that.

There were also acrobats and clowns who waved at us, and did some fun little tricks...and then just like that...it was all over! It was so brief, but so very cool. I certainly enjoyed the elephant parade.

I did also enjoy getting out of the cold, and heading back home to finally get to bed. :-)