A Happy Little Trip

Our younger son and his wife recently bought a new home. This is their third home purchase, having begun in a cute little condo, moving to a townhouse upon starting their family, and finally, eight years later, making the move to their dream house.

Joe had been down twice in the past month to help them, first with getting the townhouse ready to put on the market, and the second time to help with the logistics of the move and doing some small projects in the new home.

Finally it was my turn to see the new house! Simply put, it is spectacular. There was a time in my life when this house would have been everything I ever dreamed of.  It is huge. Andrew and Amy were so fortunate to get this house. They are committed to an area where there aren't many houses on the market at any given time, and it is truly a seller's market if a buyer has another house that needs to be sold. The circumstances of this house's becoming available were unusual. And fortuitous.

Whenever we visit these people, we are apprised of the schedule almost immediately upon our arrival. The menu for at-home meals is provided, and information about reservations for any meals out is also distributed. They always plan some wonderful out-of-the-house activity for us.

This time we spent several hours at The National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. We started with the orientation film (our usual practice) and then explored some of the exhibits. The museum has a large area where there are projects for kids to enhance their experience, and Miles and Eli had a wonderful time there.

Joe and I had stopped at our favorite farm stand on the way down where we bought some foods to enhance our dinner on Sunday night. The first corn and first tomatoes of the season were absolutely delicious, as was the barbecued chicken. Andrew and I paid a visit to the local cheese shop where we introduced each other to our particular favorites which all turned out to be perfect accompaniments to the Moscato we'd picked up earlier.

This picture is of Miles (age 5-1/2) displaying the craft that he made at the museum. You can see both boys with their mom in the photo above. Obviously Eli is still in motion, which seems to be the case most of the time with him.

Both boys were interested in the World Cup and Eli (age 8) astonished me with his knowledge: He knew the schedule for which teams were playing and when, and for any particular player he could tell me the name, the home team for the player, and also what country he was playing for in this competition.  I was mightily impressed.

Andrew thoughtfully suggested we wait until after the morning rush hour before heading home; his advice was spot-on. There were cars, lots of cars, but no back-ups, no unexplained stops, no accidents; truly, a smooth trip north!