We had a great month of March.
First of all, Easton played his first season of basketball. I love basketball and it has taken a while for my kids to love basketball as well. I think Easton is catching the love.
He played on a great league called Upwards - it is run by a church and really instructive and supportive. He is not quite ready for the big boys, but he is learning!
His best friend, David, was also on the team. Easton is 3 months older than David, but David is a foot taller!
Happy "pie" day 3.14
We bought the most delicious cherry pie from Costco and I wanted to marry it!
I took of picture of David because he always seems jealous when I am snapping pictures of the kids!
Grandma Linda came for a visit!
I flew grandma into National airport so we could go straight to the Cherry Blossoms, but they postponed their full bloom for a few days. Instead, we stopped by Gravelly Point and enjoyed watching the airplanes land.
The boys fought over 'who could touch the airplane'... Easton almost has it here...
Declan got it!
They started getting the hang of it...
The next day, we took off for Emerald Isle - a cool island beach in North Carolina. It is the boys spring break and we wanted to skip town. David had a crazy work schedule, so grandma filled in!
The beach was amazing - beautiful weather, empty beaches, great waves and sand, and more perfect seashells than we could even collect!
We rented a 2 bedroom house a few blocks off the coast. It was cozy and plenty of room. We enjoyed the full kitchen and washer and dryer! I found it on Air B&B and it was super cheap - only $79 a night for a total of $340 for 3 nights. The service and cleaning fees were more reasonable than a management company. The only downside was when we had to go to the bathroom and we were at the beach... we got really good at holding it!
We went down to the Pier and the fishermen were really great. They showed us their fish (this one is a puffer fish) and the zillions of sting rays (accidentally caught).
The top of the fish...then the bottom of the fish all puffed up!
A 'smiling' sting ray
The quiet coastline.
My favorite picture!
I have 4 crazy boys and I have no idea where they get all their crazy energy!
When we got back from the beach, it was the perfect time to see the Cherry Blossoms.
Just my mom and I went to see them since it was a Sunday afternoon and REALLY busy!
We drove around for a while on the Virginia side of the cherry blossoms and couldn't find the parking lot our friend suggested. We finally decided to park at the Arlington Cemetery. It was a LONG walk for both of us...but especially by 69.9 year old mom. She did great though and is quite the trooper.
We were definitely rewarded for our efforts with these beautiful blossoms!
My mom especially loved these pink hued blossoms.
Did I mention how cute my mom is? And how easy she is to photograph?! I'm used to boys who won't even look at me or give me a crazy face..it was fun!
The best part of our cherry blossom adventure?....It was getting late by the time we finally got to the cherry blossoms and walked along a few paths. We had a friend coming for dinner (oh, did I mention it was Easter Sunday!!!!). I thought it would make more sense to walk to the Smithsonian metro station to ride back to Arlington Cemetery. I think my mom was right though...it was about the same distance to the metro station as just walking back to the car. Once we got there, we had to wait 15 minutes for our train. My this time, we got back to the cemetery by 5:59 and we saw a man closing the parking lot gate. I was totally confused. Then I saw it... a sign that said... 'park closes at 6pm'. Apparently this meant - if you don't get out of the parking lot by 6pm, we are going to lock you in with a big giant iron gate! I started to panic. We were already late for Easter dinner and now my car was going to be impounded and we would need David to come rescue us! Well, we walked into the iron gate as it was closing and the attendant said we would have to call the police to get out. This was all so weird. Then as we walked a little further, a man yelled down to us that if we were out within 5 minutes, we would let us out. Of course I parked in the furthest spot possible. I handed my camera to my mom, and said, 'wait here'...then I sprinted. I grabbed the car, grabbed my mom, paid our fee, and got to that gate in like 4 minutes. It was awesome and the man totally let us out. I grew 10 more gray hairs that day, but any adventure that ends well, is ok in my book!
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Somehow between the beach trip, the cherry blossoms, and the crazy boys - we managed to make this entire quilt for Declan! I had already cut the squares from old baby shirts - but we had to re-cut them, cut squares of backing to match them - iron them together...sew them all together... add the border and the fleece back. My mom did 99% of the work...but I helped watch her! Oh, and Declan LOVES it and all the other boys are jealous! I told her she is going to have to keep coming back to make more! We also hand stitched our couch, made a few matching pillowcases, and ate an entire cherry pie between the 2 of us!
My mom was scheduled to leave on Thursday evening...but for some reason her flight was cancelled and she took a taxi back to us for one more night! It was fun to have an extra day and we even brought the boys home for a few hours during the day and grandma played Monopoly with them (one of the activities they had wanted to do but we didn't get to it.) It was perfect!
