Lala Comes to Visit

Lala came to visit last week to celebrate Sophie's birthday. We have all been anticipating this for a long time and were so happy to have her here. We packed a lot into the 4 days that she was here. Sean and I were even able to get away overnight. Thank you Lala!

Her first day here we visited Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. It is only a 15 minute drive from our apartment. It was an over cast day, but it turned out to be the only day without rain, so I was glad we went when we did. Mount Vernon has amazing history and breath taking views. The girls of course had much more fun playing in the leaves and on the lawn. Oh the culture and history that they are being exposed to. Too bad they won't remember it. :)

My mom was here just in time to see the end of the fall foliage. It has been beautiful and so different from what we are used to in Colorado.

Lala arrived with a suitcase full of surprises. One of the things she brought were Thanksgiving cookie cutters that Heather and I used to use when we were little. They brought back so many memories. We spent a couple of hours baking and decorating the cookies.

Thank you Miss Christine for sending these adorable aprons. Sophie wasn't very excited about hers so my mom put it on to try a little reverse psychology. She still wasn't interested, but I know that she will be soon.

My oven here doesn't give any indication that it is preheated. We are also not set up for baking here. We pretty much use one pan for everything and dish towels for hot pads and forks for mixing. So, it was a challenge to bake, but I am so glad that we did it.

On Thursday we drove in to Washington DC. It was drizzling and parking is very difficult to find, so my mom jumped out and visited the Lincoln Memorial while I drove around a little bit. You can imagine how excited we were then to find a parking spot on Constitution and 6th, right in front of the National Gallery of Art! We parked, paid the meter and went in, knowing that we had about an hour and half until the museum closed. We saw the Impressionist rooms and a few other favorites. We ate gelato and leisurely perused the gift shop.

We left the museum with time to spare. Except, in our excitement, we had forgotten to check the parking restrictions on the meter. We came out of the museum and my car was gone. It had been towed! During rush hour the street side parking in DC turns into a third lane for traffic.

God provided for us in so many ways during the next few hours. We found a kid friendly restaurant that had mac and cheese ready to go. In that same restaurant we met a lady who works for the city of DC, pretty much to help tourist. She gave me the number to call and even made some calls to help me find my car. But, even she was surprised when we found out that the car had been towed to a parking lot about 5 miles away. She said that cars are usually moved just around the block, but that they do like to target tourist.

A word to the wise, first if you don't have your license plate number memorized, keep a copy of it in your wallet. It is almost impossible to get your car back without it and the DMV will not give it out. Second if you find a parking spot that seems to good to be true, it probably is. :)