Our 8th year of the traditional Santa visit was held during our Christmas in Kansas City. The kids are getting so grown up, this was the first year with NO tears! Remeber years past HERE!?!

J: Barbie Mermaid

C: Kit's Bed

My meeting in D.C. yesterday sounded like a perfect excuse for a Daddy Date in D.C. for the girls. While I worked they explored and took goofy pictures and walked around and such. When work was done we drove down to the White House and saw the National Christmas Tree with some of my coworkers. It was beautiful, surrounded by 50 smaller Christmas trees representing each state. Then we headed to Tyson's Corner (wowza, the shopping, eek) and had a delicious dinner that included Carolyn's FAVORITE... SHRIMP!!! By the time the waiters brought a birthday cake out for Julia she was struggling to keep her eyes open and the rest of the night was a blur from then on out.

Someone is turning five this week, and today she shared a birthday lunch with her Baltimore friend. We dined at Chuck-E-Cheese, opened a few gifts and won lots of tickets. Carolyn in particular spun the wheel-o-tickets and got 100 which was pretty much a highlight of her seven-year-old life. Julia was super excited about her gifts and the fact that she could continue to remind us that this is her birthday WEEK!

I totally did not even realize Julia's dress was on backwards until I saw these photos... it's an East Coast hip five-year-old thing I guess

Wow, wow and wow. I absolutely loved our day at Mount Vernon. By far this is the most engaging, educational and well-done site we have visited so far. The museum and education center was like nothing I'd ever seen, with life-sized models, phenomenal movies, and a room for younger children to read books about Washington, dress in colonial clothes and play with toys of that era. The educational map the girls received had a puzzle that walked them through the whole site, with the promise of a 'prize' for completing the clues (the prize was a pressed penny). We saw a demonstration on how chocolate is made (who knew!?!), and toured the amazing mansion.

The girls learned a TON, I learned a TON and have a new respect for George Washington's ingenuity, and Brandon got a TON of gorgeous photos.

We even had lunch at the Mount Vernon Inn, served by a waitress in colonial-era dress with great food grown on the farm.

Fantastic day!

PS - Did you know that the Kennedy's hosted a state dinner on the lawn of Mount Vernon overlooking the Potomac? Did you know Queen Elizabeth visited Mount Vernon? It is all so darned fascinating!!!!