Dia de Mia Vol. 2. Nos. 47 & 48 Inauguration, Snow Day, and Fun with the Boys

The long weekend (4 days!) of the inauguration of President Barrack Obama was an exciting one indeed. But... as millions descended on DC to witness the event, we mainly avoided the crowds and forgot to take any pictures. We did manage to get downtown to see Sheryl Crow and the Beastie Boys show their rocking support for Obama at the 9:30 Club, and brew some Inaugural B.O. IPA. For the actual event, we headed to Mia's friend's Tom "The Bomb" Brady's house to witness the whole thing in all of it's Hi Def, kid friendly glory. Although we didn't take any pictures, the main things to note are: 1.) Mia spent the entire time by the hors d'oeuvres and treats and ate, literally, more than half the veggies, chips, dips, hummus, and cookies (note to future Mia: We love that you have a great appetite and that you love veggies, but this is not always necessarily the best way to perform as a guest. But hey, who judging?), and 2.) friend Cameron showed what he thought of the President Elect's stand on policy by puking all over the place right before Obama began his speech. A fun time for all! (Except for Cameron and his Mom).



The next weekend we continued our trend of trading baby sitting duties for Mia's friend, Luke. These two continue to play extremely well together, and love the whole "sleep over" aspect of these babysitting stints. Pictured below are the run-and-try-to-get-away-from-Daddy/Mr. Brad-and-yell-and-scream-game, catching a flick in the kids area at the Pirate restaurant (the food is terrible, but the drinks are fun and it is a great place to take the kids), making cookies with Mommy/Mrs. Marlo and tasting the wares.









Then.... Mommy and Mia had two snow days! Daddy was a little jealous. Mia was extremely excited about her short lived winter wonderland to say the least. She ate her first snowball (is that even safe anymore?) Made her first "snow angel", and took her first sled ride (Ulla didn't pull, but was happy to follow along). We started slow down the little hill in our back yard, but by the end, our little adrenaline junkie was screaming to go as fast as possible, which was pretty darn fast and scary. Everything about the snow was great, the time off, the cold, the softness, the slipperiness, the beauty, the newness, the opportunity to don some new snow gear, and warming up on the couch with a good book after some furious snow play .











We capped the two weeks off with a visit to one of Mia's other good friends, Owen. Since Owen lives in Capitol Hill, after we played a bit at his house and had enough time for Owen to show Mia some of his cool toys and his room with new big boy bed (please no gross inferences here), we hopped, skipped and, jumped (actually rode in Allen and Elaine's new mini van) over to the Building Museum. This was our first time there as a family, and it is an awesome place. The structure itself is amazing, the main room is 3 or 4 stories high and able to house a football field with some ease I think. But the really cool part was that in one corner of the main room, there were tons of building supplies available for anyone to use. Mia and Owen had a blast and, as the evidence shows, so did the Dads (at one point we were offered $10 to allow someone's kid to knock this structure down. Upon agreeing to allow it though, we found the man was less than serious).
















We followed up the Building Museum with a trip to the National Portrait Gallery. Were we there to see the famous portraits of prolific figures in history? Nope. We went to their awesome new atrium where there is a "fountain" that is essentially a quarter inch of water flowing over slate. The kids had a blast, but got wetter than either set of parents naively expected, and the Dads were forced to dry Mia's and Owen's trousers off in the hand dryer in the restroom. Ahh, the stories we will tell at the future dinner table.....




Click here and here for more pictures.