Visit from Steph!

We were so excited to have someone from Brandon's family come visit us in DC for the short time we're here. We were VERY happy to have Steph-ster come to town. Yay for Steph! While she was here we visited the Arlington National Cemetery and the Iwo Jima Memorial - but she has the photos from that trip on her non-digital camera; you'll have to pressure her to scan them in and send them if you want to see them!

We also took a trip out to Charlottesville to see Monticello and the University of Virginia. It was a bit of a drive, but overall worth it. As we learned, once you get to Monticello, you actually have to take a shuttle up to the house. There was a line just to get on the shuttle.


Kiddo, ever the patient baby, was very accommodating of the wait.


Here's us in front of Monticello itself. Really a cool place. (Notice how Kiddo is - again - rocking the male model pose. Pouty - even at such a young age! Put the Blue Steel away, Kiddo!)


From there we went to UVA. UVA Law was, for a long time, our top law school choice.


After seeing the campus, I must admit I wished that Harvard campus did more of the columns - they just never go out of style . . .


Anyway, if you want to know how much we liked having Steph in town, just look at Kiddo's face. He doesn't smile like that for just anyone, you know.


So, yay for Steph! Come back soon!

Visit with the Youngs

In what has become a yearly event (ok, so this is only the second year), we had dinner with Brandon's mission president. This year, President Young brought Sister Young and two of their daughters to DC to play.

Here we are, along with good friend Rich, in front of the White House. (Despite how we look, we really were happy to see each other.)

Kiddo had a hard time sitting around with us at dinner (not a fan of Thai food?), but fell asleep once it was over. Of course, he woke up again before we made our way home, and was totally confused. Luckily, he had Cowboy Cluck to hold on to.


Thanks for the great time, Young family! Next year in Moscow!

Four Years

Я люблю тебя, возлюбленный!
Счастливая годовщина!

Baltimore or Bust(ed)

(This is another Brandon post. Someday I'll give myself editing rights to the blog so you all can differentiate between us easier, though if no author is indicated, then it is more than likely Felicia. Below is a picture of her in Baltimore. HOT!)



This weekend we had grand plans to get out to the National Aquarium in Baltimore (Charm City, for those of you who may have been unaware). But like any family with a small child (I detest the term "little one" in modern, everyday usage) knows, timing with kids is a tricky business at best. The challenge with the aquarium is that their tickets are all for specific entry times. Once inside, you can spend as long as you like there, but you can't enter before your entry time. Our goal was to be out the door at 9, which would get us to the aquarium around 10, and we were thinking we could probably make the 10:30 entry, thinking that the aquarium would be much less crowded earlier in the day.

Sadly, we didn't leave until well after 10, and by the time we got to Baltimore and polished off some Potbelly sandwiches and shakes (shout-out to Baxter for introducing us to the wonder that is Potbelly) it was well after 12. The line to get in was long, but the ticket line even longer. Turns out, the only times left were all after 3pm - a three hour wait!

Although the aquarium might be worth the price of admission, we decided it probably wasn't worth the additional cost of spending three hours in downtown Baltimore with no other plans and a hot and sweaty baby. Instead we decided to simply stroll along the harbor and then head home.

As it was, there was a "Heritage Walk" of sorts around the harbor. Along the way was this random steam ship, poised perfectly for the following touristy-like photo.


Guiding our way were these little markers in the brick, saying, you guessed it, "Heritage Walk". Half were in English and the other half were in various other languages. It doesn't take a genius to guess that I demanded like a 12-year-old boy to follow the markers until we found the Russian one.

As you other Russian speakers will likely notice, the way they decided to translate "Heritage Walk" is less than correct, unless my skills are slipping and this is some new usage I am unaware of . . . . (possible).


I don't know why I'm including this picture - to document my onsetting baldness? Who knows.


Now this - there's a reason this particular shot is on the blog, and why we felt it was so important that we would pull Kiddo out of his car seat. This is the USS Constellation, the sister ship of the USS Constitution, which sits in Boston Harbor. Felicia's dad would be sorely disappointed if there wasn't a picture of his grandson with this boat, so it got special attention.

In any event, Baltimore wasn't all bad, but we are sad about the whole aquarium failure. Next time, we'll do as the website suggests and buy our tickets beforehand.

I'm so glad when daddy comes home

Whenever I (Brandon) come home, I instantly have to switch from summer-associate mode to daddy mode. Something about Felicia being at home alone all day with the baby and wanting a break -- you get the picture.

Anyway, Kiddo and I usually engage in deep, intellectual pursuits. Our current challenge is teaching Kiddo Russian. Turns out, he's pretty good at it.
His произношение is excellent (I swear he sounds just like a three month old Russian baby), but we're having trouble with his запас слов and грамматика. Eh well. I'll take what I can get.

When we're all done with Russian, we work on our male-model poses.

I call this one, "Just got home from work with baby on my lap." Kiddo's is the classic Blue Steel and Slobber - a winning combo.

In any event, life with Kiddo is a non-stop party.

(We sure like each other, anyway!)

Independence Day weekend...at Annapolis and the National Zoo

If you recall, last year for Independence Day we toured the Kremlin and Red Square. Not very patriotic. This year, we live in the hub of all things patriotic, but didn't want to deal with the crowds that were bound to exist at the Mall. We opted to visit Annapolis instead. Random? Yes, but a lot of fun.
And other than needing a few clothing changes, Kiddo was great--a born tourist!




On the 5th, we spent the afternoon at the National Zoo. Brandon's favorite was the maned wolf, which neither of us had ever seen--or smelled--before. We thought it smelled a lot like skunk, but Wikipedia has a different description. Does that mean that skunks smell like marijuana or that I just don't know what marijuana smells like?


Somehow, this was the only picture we took at the zoo.
Hello cheetah.