Let's Go Fly a Kite!

Yesterday we joined some friends (and a couple thousand strangers) on the Mall for the Smithsonian Kite Festival.  This is one of my favorite D.C. events!

Our friends, S and D met us there with their little one, baby D, who was lookin' o-so-cute in his wacky winter hat!

S and D have tickets to opening day at Nationals Park on Sunday.  Hmmm... guess who they'll be cheering for?  Clue: not the Nationals.

We always have fun when we hang out with J and R and their brood of three.  J and 'lil J checked out the kites....

... E ran alongside me and valiantly tried to help me get my octopus kite into the air...

... and S just tried to make her getaway!

"Look at that kite!"  was a commonly uttered phrase.  

Kite flying takes a strong wind, a steady hand, and (apparently) a goofy face.  What's with the face, Karen??  

And then there's that face!  What's with that face??

R had better kite flying luck than I did!  (And she didn't have to run the length of the Mall dragging an octopus with a five year old shouting, "Run, Ms. Karen, run!" to do it, either!)

We had a great time!  I'm looking forward to doing it again next year! - wedding permitting, of course!

Go Us!!

Check it out:  

That's right!  "Best of" Videographers in the D.C. Metro area!  Can I hear a "woo hoo"?? 

p.s.  the knot is H.U.G.E.  This is a very, very, very good thing.  yay.

North Carolina photo shoot!

Here are my favorites from our trip to North Carolina.  Ava is sooooo cute!!  She is 3 months old and babbling / squealing non-stop!  We had a good visit with Dale, Joe, and Ava and took these pictures before we left!

Our makeshift "studio" is courtesy of Dale and Joe's comforter thrown over the couch!

"Mmmm... baby hands taste like baby drool.." says big sister, Indi.

What a good lookin' family!

Sooo cute!

Modeling one of the cute outfits she will soon outgrow!  (Also known as Ava in da hood!)

It's March???!!!! When did that happen???!!

Seriously!  How did we go from Christmas to the middle of March so quickly?  I feel like I've been in a mini time warp of some sort.  My grandfather's death in February threw me for a loop and I feel like time sped up and slowed down at the same time.  It was a rough time for my family as he and my grandmother were visiting from South Africa and just two weeks from going home when he died.  It was a shock, to say the least.  Now it's almost spring and I have no idea how that happened!  

I also have no idea what I've been doing with my time.  We've been more or less wedding-less and enjoying our weekends these last few months.  Our "get fit" new year's resolution is still going strong.  I've lost 12 of the 25 pounds I needed to drop.  Woo hoo.  I'd say that with more enthusiasm, but I've hit a plateau and am having a hard time getting to the 15 lb mark, which sucks.  Pern has lost 32 pounds!  Yes, 32!!!  I am so proud of him!  We've both been making an extra effort to make smarter food choices, and get our butts off the couch more often.  I've been making every attempt to drag myself out of bed at 5:00 and walk on the treadmill every morning.  I am successful approximately 2 out of 5 days.  Not bad,  I suppose.  I prefer our weekend work-outs (typically a nice long walk on the W&OD trail on Saturday and then a trip to the gym on Sunday) and look forward to them all week.  That's about to change, however, as April looms on the horizon.  

April brings with it the start of wedding season and the realization that our weekends will no longer be our own.  Sigh.  Good for our business, bad for our waistlines.  We'll just have to make some adjustments.  Now that there's a little extra daylight in each day, we'll have to to start walking in the evenings when I get home from work.  

I'm on spring break right now, which is nice.  Got a lot done already!  Cleaned out my closet last night, cleaned out my car this morning (gave it some much-needed TLC, including a trip through the car wash), and will be cleaning out my Montessori room tomorrow.  "Girls Gone Wild - Spring Break!" it is not, but I'm happy.  We're off to NC tomorrow afternoon to see Dale, Joe, and the baby (how old do children have to be before we stop referring to them as "the baby" and start calling them by name?) for a couple of days.  If I have it my way, the rest of the week will consist of  a little time in the backyard working on my garden and a little bit of shopping to get some new clothes for summer (a little tricky when I still plan to lose another 13 pounds).  

Let's see.  Other than all that, I've been working on planning the school camping trip in May, and I went to the American Montessori Society's annual conference in D.C. last weekend.  And now it's the middle of March and you're all caught up!  Hopefully, I'll have some pics to post from our trip and the rest of my spring break.  I plan to have a beautiful garden this summer, so keep checking in for those updates.  Happy Easter!

Mii and Pii like to Wii !!!

More from the aspiring photographers...

Here are some recent pics we are quite proud of.  

We ran around Leesburg (quite literally, at times, as it was cold and rainy) and took some engagement pictures of our friends, Claudia and Jeff, who are getting married on October 11.  

They wanted some mushy, kissy-faced, pictures to celebrate their recent engagement.  Who doesn't?  Jeff really got into it, which somewhat surprised Claudia, I think.  But then again, who wouldn't get into public displays of affection in the rain while someone is pointing a camera at you?  Ummm... me?  and most of the people I know... 

This one's my favorite.  Pern took it after we got back to our house and had warmed our toes and fingers.  He took most of the others, too, by the way... I took a couple, but primarily stuck to color correction and touch ups for this shoot.

We like 'em.  The pictures, that is.  Oh, and Claudia and Jeff... we like them too :)

Oh, happy day!

It's the little things in life that make my day.  Like, saving the planet.  

You see, we do most of our grocery shopping at Target.  They have a decent grocery department and if we need say, a pillow or luggage, they have those things, too.  This has, until Thursday, filled us with guilt and despair, as every single shopping trip results in a minimum of 5 earth-unfriendly plastic bags.  The Target cashiers, mostly high school kids, don't know how to pack and as a result, we have oodles and oodles of extra bags floating around our house.  I'd always felt weird about taking our re-useable Giant bags into the store (didn't want to be tracked through the store via security cams as a potential shoplifter) so dealt with the plastic onslaught until... lo and behold!!!:  Target "green" bags (they're actually red)!!!  Woo Hoo!  Now we can bring official Target re-useable bags into the store, load them up, and bring them home without the extra plastic!  We both just stood there in the aisle, looking at them, and saying, "Oh, my God!  Are these what we think they are??"  It was a happy day!

Oh, yeah... Happy New Year!