My goal for the summer is to focus on doing the things that we most want to do and not succumbing to whatever it is that makes us crazy busy during the school year. Part of this is taking time to just be with friends. Last Wednesday we went for a very short hike (short because we didn't go far) to a park that I had never been to or heard of before, Larus Park, which is right near Stony Point Shopping Center and the Chippenham Parkway, which we could hear through the trees. It was a beautiful park and a hidden gem in our area. It reminded me so much of Shenandoah National Park, with its boulders and streams with rocky beds that are perfect for wading through. Here are my boys, some friends, and the accompanying dogs. Bilbo didn't make it into the picture, but Abby and Bentley did. I miss Shenandoah so much--we used to go hiking once or twice a week when we were at UVA and just had Hokie as our baby. Though our walk was short, the time outside was well worth the trip, and we're planning more hikes on summer mornings.

Over the weekend, my Dad was at his timeshare in Old Town Alexandria, so we went up late on Thursday night after the dive meet to spend the weekend. The timeshare was perfectly located for getting right on the King Street Metro, and this made it easy to get in and out of D.C. several times. We went to the Air and Space Museum on the first day, which unfortunately was a day that got off to a rocky start. Frances was tired and didn't want to go to this museum--she wanted to go to Natural History. So there was some crying and foot dragging. After the museum, we went to find lunch, then set off on a trek to the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials, which I had not seen before. Though we made a pit stop at a CVS en route, it got very, very hot, and I started overheating. It's really not pretty when I overheat, and it happens frightfully often now since I had heat exhaustion last summer while playing tennis. Something was going on at the White House, so security was very high and about 7 blocks of streets were closed, as well as the whole right side of the Washington Monument, the Ellipse, and some access to the Mall. This made what felt like a death march all the worse, and I kept wondering whether I was going to need to stop one of the cops and ask for assistance or an escort to air conditioning and more water, but with some help from Ollie in pushing the stroller, we made it to the lobby of the American History museum, where we could rest and rehydrate. That evening we ordered in dinner at the hotel and spent a few hours in the swimming pool, where the boys played a lot of very energetic keepaway type games with a teenager they met there.

On our second day we went to two fabulous museums outside of DC: the National Marine Corps Museum, which was excellent and spot on for Ollie and the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, which was also just breathtaking. It was a perfect day with just the right amount of activity. In the evening we met my Dad and Patsy for dinner and then Kerry, Ollie, and I went for a walk in Old Town, though most of the stores were closed at that point.

On our final day, we went back into DC and spent some time in the mammals and ocean galleries of the Museum of Natural History, then headed over to the newly remodeled Ford's Theatre, which Lincoln was shot, and we finished up with a late lunch at ESPNZone, which was close by. There comes a point on every trip where you rather suddenly just want to click your heels and be home, and this was that point for me. We had a super trip, but it was suddenly time to be back in our house, getting ready for the week. After enduring the typical large amount of non-moving traffic on I-95, Ollie arrived in time for the awards ceremony for his baseball team and got his trophy, and Walter got home in time to do some of his Learning RX homework.
Last night was our first swim meet of the season. All three kids swam, and Walter and Ollie had a new breakthrough--they got to swim in a relay at the end of the meet. They really gave it their best, and their team came in 3rd, which is a pretty good showing for swimmers new to the scene. Walter and Ollie swim freestyle, backstroke, and breast stroke, and Frances swims only freestyle and backstroke. They all had a fabulous time, but I think no one had more fun than Rutledge. Rut was out running with a gang of boys and, as they put it, "bare-back wrestling" with a 6 year old on the team from the moment they arrived until the moment they left around 9:30 p.m. He has become so gregarious and outgoing, and he finds people everywhere to talk to, play with, and to dote on him. This morning it was a teenager at the pool who played volleyball and soccer with him for an hour. Tonight it was another teenage girl at the indoor pool. He has never really met a stranger that he didn't start chatting up!



Here he's looking a bit grumpy. The new hours that we wake up because of dive practice at 8 a.m. aren't entirely agreeing with everyone yet. We're those freaks who usually wake sometime between 8 and 9, though Rutledge and Frances had starting backing things up toward 7 within the last few months, and I feel like I should have been adapting over time better than I have. I get very knocked out by late afternoon, which is not a feeling that I enjoy. But I do appreciate the immense sense of promise a day has when it starts before, oh, say, 10. I feel like I accomplish so much more before the day sprouts legs and escapes me when I am up at a reasonable hour.

Rutledge even has his own first activity--swim lessons with Ms. Erline. Erline has been teaching swim lessons since 1944. That's a long, long time! She is very gentle with the children, but they trust her, and she pushes them to go beyond their current limits and try new things. Rutledge is doing far better than I ever expected--last Thursday he went about 20 feet dog paddling across the pool. He is still nervous about putting his head back to float on his back, but he is willingly going into the water now for his lessons and holds on to the side, jumps (in his own special, cautious Rutledge way), and swims out to her with support. I'm confident that he'll be swimming by the end of the summer, and hopefully well before. Right now we just need to get him comfortable enough to go into the baby pool or wade up to his knees in the mushroom pool.

Tomorrow evening is our second dive meet, and it looks like all three kids will be diving in this one. Walter was not ready with his four dives last week, so he, like about half of the team, had to sit it out. Ollie has gotten down a new dive--a front flip 1 1/2 with a half twist. This is a bit up in difficulty from his previous dives. Frances has gotten down her back dive and her front tuck, so she is ready with a higher degree of difficulty as well. And Walter is doing much better with his back dive, so now he has four dives, which is what is required of his age group this year. Dive is still the favorite of the summer sports for everyone.

And last, but not least, we have some new pets. This sounds like a good thing, but it's never quite clear whether a new pet is a good thing in our household! Already, our sweet and cute new hamster has had his cage door left open and had traveled out of the bedroom he was in, down the hall, and under my bed, where he was finally stalked and caught. And we have a very, very cute turtle, Turtellini, who has a habitat in an old aquarium. Originally he was only supposed to stay for a day or two, but now we seem to be making plans for a longer time with us. We're still learning how to best feed him, but he is quite the new family member. And finally, tonight when I went to buy more salt and fresh water at the fish store, I came home with a new buddy for our fearless foursome. His name is Scooter Blennie, which I think sounds like the name of the kid who sat two desks behind you in 3rd grade, but we're going to go with the obvious and just call him Scooter. He's very interesting so far--he has these cool little leglike things that he runs on, and he has a propensity to repose on the rock and look dead, then dart off at lightning speed when he gets wind that someone is looking at him. It remains to be seen whether he will "disappear," Bermuda-Triangle style, as some of our other newly introduced smaller fish have done. He seems like someone who could hold his own, but you never know in the fish eat fish world of the saltwater aquarium....