Picnic under the Cherry Blossoms

In an attempt to meet up with my friend Katie at the National Cherry Blossom Festival today, the boys and I hopped on the Metro and headed into downtown D.C. We packed a tasty lunch, brought our blanket, walking shoes and camera to soak in all of the famous Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin that we have heard so much about. They did not dissapoint! Sheer Heaven, gorgeous blossoms as far as the eye could see!

This should be a fabulous picture. Ronan should be able to do something at this stage in life rather than stare directly back at me whenever I turn a camera on him. Porter should be able to smile normally as well without doing strange things with his hands. However, "should be" and reality are two different things. Thus, this is the best picture I was able to procure of the Jefferson Memorial, blossoms, Tidal Basin, and boys. My boys are such stinkers sometimes, but I love it.

After wading our way through a sea of people, police cars and road blocks ( being as we watched the motorcade for either our President or the French President-depending on who you asked-go by) we gave up on trying to find Katie. The fact that I need to reprogram about 50 phone numbers back into my phone at the moment, so I didn't have hers when I needed it is a whole different story. Sorry Katie!! But I digress, so yes... the best part of being a "kind-of-tourist", as I've decided to call it is that we can go and enjoy whatever we want for whenever we want and not feel too much pressure. I really have been trying to focus on the moments, and enjoy what we can, while we can.

So Porter helped me pick a "just perfect" spot to throw out our little blanket and set up our picnic on our own. Both of my boys are in love with the idea of a "picnic". They think it is fabulous to eat outside. We sat and ate, laughed as Porter told me jokes, and enjoyed the amazing scenery. PB&J never tasted so good!

We walked around a bit more, thought about the idea of waiting in the two extremely long lines to get through security for the Natural History Museum and the American History Museum; and eventually settled on getting some popcorn from a street vendor (also something Porter has been dying to do). We relaxed on a bench and enjoyed our snack while Ronan slept peacefully in the stroller!

It really was fabulous to really do nothing big at all. Just enjoy my boys, enjoy the SPRING, and enjoy the current blessing we have to be living in the D.C. area. It is days like this that really make you fall in love with this city. Another great day for the history books.