Beautiful

Isn't she beautiful? I have the most amazing husband ever!! This was my surprise Valentine's Day gift, complete with matching tulips. Noah somehow found this beauty in my size and totally surprised me! Needless to say, I am IN LOVE. Both with my husband and my beautiful new bike.

My other bike is packed away in storage, (it was a mountain bike anyway though) and this one is a Comfort Hybrid. I think it is essentially a cross between a mountain bike, beach cruiser, and a road bike. We found out that we will be having some time to do some great bike rides on some awesome trails around here before we leave for Istanbul. We are so excited to go on some family bike rides this summer. It is one thing that we have always really enjoyed doing together. Great times.

And finally, yes. My favorite tulips. He knows me so well. It was a fabulous day to say the least.

I love these boys

Not much else to say really, just that I LOVE MY BOYS!! I just wanted to post a few more random fun Valentine pics that we had. We had a fun holiday weekend for sure, and loved doing sweet things for each other. I finally got some great grins out of Ronan, we did some great crafting!!

Annual Valentine's Day Breakfast

It's time again...

for bacon in the shape of a heart on a plate, pink heart shaped pancakes,

and for our annual Valentine's Day Breakfast!!!

This is one of my favorite little traditions that we have started with our family. I love to make sure ALL of my boys have a great Valentine's Day and know that I love them. The breakfast especially is for the kiddos though, and we have a great time. We give them fun little gifts, something from Mommy and something from Daddy, and everyone reads their Valentine cards. I love to make fun homemade cards, and this year was no exception. The boys went a little crazy on the glitter heart stickers, but they also had a great time making Valentines in preparation for the event!

Daddy's gift this year for everyone was Phillies themed! It was perfect because it was red and white for one. (What better colors for Valentine's day gifts?) Then also, as you may have guessed...we are finally going to get to go to some real live Phillie's games with the whole family this summer. We are really excited for this, and needed to get some new gear!

Notice the card that Ronan made for Daddy...he couldn't get enough stickers! Love it.

Happy Valentine's Day! I love my handsome boys!

Makes Daddy's heart go Pit-a-Pat

Porter (and Ronan) received their first Phillies hats recently. They both LOVE them. Porter, however, has somehow come up with the idea that he needs to wear his all the time-or "his good luck will wash away", because "my hat is my good luck, right?" We do not know where he got this idea, but we both laughed and laughed! We are loving it, and it is so cute. He slept with it the first night he got it, as was to be expected, but nothing was said about the luck. The next night, he went to bed without for the first few minutes, then came running out of his room in a panic! Mommy, I need my Phillies hat! When it was secured safely on his head he let out a huge sigh of relief. "Phew! that was close, I almost lost all my luck!" He has since slept with it. He woke up early this morning and crawled into bed with us. Even then, he had his hat on. What a cool kid! Maybe it will bring the Phillies good luck this year!

Moving across the world...well just to DC for now

I have gotten multiple comments about us moving across the world, and the "culture shock" and dealing with all the changes and ways that people do things. I know it might be a struggle at times for sure. However, I like to remind myself that I've already done it to different degrees many times before. My new realization, in observing things here in DC is that you can experience "culture shock" even when you just move to a new state:) While we are still here, in the United States, our fabulous capital to be exact... we have encountered several things that have made me question where indeed in the world we are living! I'm kidding of course, but truly, even here I have made some fun observations about DC area living. Some good, some bad, some just odd. I thought I'd share some of them with you here today.

1.We are in a major city, yet I am not not the least surprised anymore when the restaurant or store I am at only takes cash. (also toll roads and parking lots) Now we always make sure we have at least some!

2. They have a strict no eating or drinking policy on the public transportation system that is actually enforced. Good for them I guess. I hear even a sippy cup can be bad news.

3. They like to think of themselves as a place that doesn't really get a lot of snow, even not including this year though...I think they get a decent amount. (This year of course they are the snowiest city in the country!!) They should just accept it.

4. It is near impossible to find Velveeta Cheese. I have found some Velveeta Shells and Cheese packs, but not the actual cheese. Sad. If anyone knows of where I can buy some, please let me know!

5. The museums and most of the amazing and cools things to see here are free! Love it.

6. Their metro system is really very clean and efficient. Also, most of the stations have escalators and elevators! yay for mommys with small children. unlike some other cities I have been in.

7. There are hardly any Wal-Marts. I have yet to lay my eyes on one. Noah found one when we needed to return something we had boughten there before Christmas, but it was like 20 minutes away and pretty complicated to find.

8. There are tons of Targets though! Yay for me. I love Target.

9. If it is going to snow people stick up their windshield wipers so they won't freeze to the window or something. Then after it snows it looks like all the cars have these little antennas sticking out through the snow. It is kind of cute, and makes me laugh.

10. You MUST pay attention to the road signs here. I have never seen a place like this. They have tons of roads that you can't turn on during certain hours, and lanes that aren't really lanes except during certain times. Maybe most cities are like that, I don't know. But for me it is weird. They also have lots of HOV on and off ramps. That has worked out well for us!

So anyway, just a few of my tidbits on DC living. Things that I have found to be new or different. We love it here though. We are so lucky, and I can't wait to experience even more of this great place!

Snowcation

Oh what do you do in the blizzard time, when all the city is closed? Well, WE

played in the snow

and played in the snow

And rode bikes in the hall

and played with our daddy for DAYS!!!

Some other things that also happened at our house this week:

-some great family Beatles Rockband playing

-hanging out with some super great neighbors and friends

-playing a couple of great new games we'd never played before (Blokus and Cribbage)

-Watching the Super Bowl with the traditional dip and Fritos

-played soccer in the living room (very carefully)

-ate some awesome caramel wrapped pretzels dipped in white chocolate-YUM

-did every load of laundry in the house from start to finish (including folding and putting away)

-gave both boys and daddy great haircuts

-Mommy did her first blog book from start to finish and can't wait to get it in the mail

-took Valentine's pictures of the boys for Valentine's Cards

-designed and ordered said photo Valentine Cards

-Ordered our first two travel books on Istanbul

-deep cleaned the master closet and finally unpacked the last pesky suitcase from our UAB (sidenote: I've decided even more of our clothes are going to goodwill. in an attempt to keep all of our clothes together-ones we hardly ever wear came in our UAB. forget it. They are just going to goodwill. We don't need them, and someone else probably does)

-and ate way too much other delicious junk food

All in all, a pretty productive "Snowcation"

Blizzard 2010

We have officially been through the snowiest winter in DC history. Over the last week, we received 27 inches here in our specific neck of the woods (although we heard it was 32+ out at the airport) last weekend. We literally couldn't get out for most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The roads were just a mess still and the metro wasn't working in all areas though for Monday and Tuesday so Noah was off of work! In the meantime, another round of snow was building and is currently blowing around outside our window. This time dumping another 10ish inches! Result: Wednesday and Thursday for sure off of work as well, and we are curious as the the fate of Friday. Wow. It has sure been a whopper, Noah and the neighbors have spent hours and hours shoveling out our cars and parking spots. The boys have just loved every second that they could just play in it!

Our cute neighbor Ryli pulling Porter on his sled. What a great friend! Porter also refused to wear his mittens this day, insisting that he wants gloves instead of mittens so that he can actually grab things. So instead, his hand are tucked safely in his pockets! Great for grabbing.

And an end result like this when he fell off! He just rolled around and lay there like a dead fish since he couldn't use his hands! Silly boy.

The boys taking a break from the playing. What sweethearts these boys are! What more could a 2,3 & 4 year old ask for!

A great picture taken in our parking lot. Our building is in the background. It has been a fun week with daddy home everyday! They are getting REALLY used to having him home all the time, so it is going to be a sad day when he goes back to work! Either way, we'll take what we can get. Fun times.

National Zoo and "Baby" Tai Shan

Last week, in a break between bad weather we headed out to see "baby" Tai Shan, the Giant Panda. He was born at the National Zoo in 2005, and is being sent to China to be part of a breeding program there. He was quite a big deal around these parts, and they had tons of darling baby pictures, and so forth of him. I must say, he really was pretty cute! If you know my boys, then you know they are ALWAYS up for a trip to the zoo, so with their new favorite little buddy (Ryli, from down the hall) in tow we hopped on the Metro and hit the town!

We actually got there only like 10 minutes before they were closing the exhibit and getting ready to put him into his crate! Talk about just in the nick of time! The boys posed for you here in front of his crate. They dubbed his trip the "Panda Express".

Getting a tasty snack

His crate all ready to go inside his habitat. Witnessing history folks!

No trip to the zoo would be had without a trip to see the Zebras (Porter's favorite!)

There was a brand new baby gorilla named Kabibi, just born in the middle of January. She was SOOOOOOO cute! I had no idea they were so darling, and little. Seriously, it melted my heart. Ronan is twice the size of her in this picture. He kept saying, " cuuuuute". It is one of his new favorite words.

And a final shot of Tai Shan with his head in a box. I've heard he was quite the performer, being that he was used to lots of attention from the get go. There aren't too many pandas around, so we did enjoy ourselves, and the boys can't wait to go back!

p.s. the national zoo is quite large, with a lot of walking. So be prepared! We only did the first half. Next time we'll see the parts with the Lions, Tigers, etc.

Our new favorite song

We added both the original 1947 version, and the more recent version of our new favorite song to the blog for your listening pleasure! Enjoy! Also, even though "He can't say " why they changed the name, we can. Constantinople was obviously named for the emperor Constantine. Istanbul is the real Turkish name. Obviously, the Roman Empire is no longer around...so when the Turkish Post Office wanted to make everything official and the same worldwide it was changed to its original Turkish name of Istanbul. And there you have it. Sorry Constantine. You don't have any pull any more:)