The Bookends--Uncle Bailey's 70th & Sarah's Wedding

The driving force for our two-week vacation adventure was timing. My uncle Bailey was turning 70 and his children had planned a surprise party on the Saturday before Memorial Day in Rockville, Maryland, a suburb of Washington DC. My wonderful college friend Sarah was getting married two weeks later in Charlottesville, VA, which is also pretty close to DC. As our family grows, we find flying to be somewhat cost prohibitive, and the thought of driving up and back twice in two weeks was wretched. So we took 2 weeks to explore the mid-Atlantic region and timed it so that Peter's upcoming work trip to DC would coincide. Yes, I know, brilliant. And insane.

So with 3 children ages 7 and under, we packed up the minivan, filled it with coloring books, DVD player, iPods, Mad Libs, trivia questions, dolls, pillows, Mom's handy file of hotel confirmation numbers and mapquest directions, a cooler, sand toys, baby backpack, stroller, snacks and a laptop. We were packed in like sardines! We put over 3700 miles on the van. I took about 900 pictures. We stayed in 6 different hotels and in the company townhouse. We ate out and cooked in. For the most part, we all got along pretty well--and that's a feat when there are 5 people together 24 hours a day for 16 straight days! There are several posts after this one to highlight our travels. This one includes pictures from the two events that began and ended the Marsh Family Adventure of 2009.
Uncle Bailey's Party and Family Lunch on Sunday:











Sarah and Lane's Wedding with reception at Ash Lawn (home of Pres James Monroe) with blue grass music and square dancing!:

Sand in Our Toes!

On the advice of several of my local cousins in the DC area, we decided to go to the beach at Ocean City, Maryland. It took about 3 hours to get there--but compared to the drives we were used to on this trip, that was nuttin'. We drove back in a torrential downpour after dark, but the girls slept, so it was all good. We played in the sand and the very cold waves until the lifeguards closed the beach due to an impending storm. Peter and I were surprised how much the girls loved the beach--I thought the cold water would be a deterrent and that Amelia would not like the sand. SO wrong! Amelia rolled in the sand, Rebecca couldn't get enough of the water, and everyone made a sand castle, hauling buckets of damp sand around like nobody's business. Then we ate pizza on the Boardwalk, had Thrasher's fries (made with sea salt and apple cider vinegar--yum), and played in the arcade on the Pier when the rain started. Another VERY successful vacation day!

Rockin' The Capital City

Last year, we went to DC for Spring Break and saw two of the Smithsonian museums. My very favorite one--American History, where I interned as a college student--was closed for renovations. It's open now, so I loaded the kidlets onto the Metro for our city adventure. We also had a picnic on the National Mall and had ice cream from a street vendor. Highlights: Dorothy's ruby slippers, learning about sit-ins and desegregation, watching a performance about the original Star-Spangled banner (which is now laying flat and well-preserved, rather than hanging in the middle of the museum lobby), oooing and aahing at the First Ladies' dresses, listening to jazz music, watching cartoons with WWII propaganda and trying on water backpacks used by troops in the desert these days.







My 2 favorite stories from the Smithsonian actually have nothing to do with the exhibits, and those of you on Facebook have already heard one of them:

Amelia is screeching in the bathroom as Rebecca does her business. The sound is echoing. The usual distractions/comfort measures are futile. Mommy has a (rare) brilliant idea, pulls the bubbles from the lunch bag (intended for use during the afternoon picnic) and begins to blow. Screams melt into giggles, other museum-goers look bewildered as we exit the stall with bubbles floating all over the bathroom! I keep bubbles in the diaper bag now at all times!

Another Amelia screeching story (she was happy most of the time, I promise!). She needs to eat. She's fussy and tired, but the nap will not happen until lunch is served. We're touring the military history/war section. I find a bench and stealthily begin feeding her a sandwich. All is well. I look up and notice we are in front of the exhibit about Nazis, next to a video about concentration camps. Nice. Feeding my chubby baby while others view a video of starving people. So appropriate. This less-than-brilliant Mommy move cancels out my earlier bubble-blowing brilliance.

Since I am a glutton for punishment, I loaded the kids on the subway a second day, this time to visit the National Gallery of Art. Sketch pads and colored pencils in hand, the big girls parked on benches and drew their favorite works, noting on each page which artist's work "inspired" their own. They loved this activity. Amelia fell asleep in the Gallery, giving them plenty of time to sketch away. Molly's favorite was Picasso, Rebecca's was Manet and his dog and horse portraits. Usually, I am over-prepared for outings with children. I absorb a fair amount of teasing for my zealousness, in fact. This day, however, I did not pack the parkas or the umbrellas, and we walked about a mile in the pouring rain. (Amelia's stroller has a cover, so she was dry.) "It's an adventure!" I urged brightly. They were good sports, but the poor kids were soaked to the bone! To make up for my ineptitude, I agreed to 2 games on the subway ride home. First, the ABC Pizza game, often played as we wait for food in restaurants. ("Hi, I am Alice, I am from Alaska, and I like Apples on my pizza," for example. Next player offers B words, etc.) Second, the Person Game, where she who is "It" will think of a person and answer yes or no questions from other players until they figure out who it is. (Mine: Noah. Molly's: Martha Washington. Rebecca's: Jafar the mean wizard from "Aladdin.")

Our other two days included a trip to the River Farm House in Alexandria with its gardens and views of the Potomac River & Baltimore's Inner Harbor and the National Aquarium there.



I must admit, the aquarium was disappointing. It was not interactive enough and, my biggest beef, no strollers were allowed. I put Amelia in the backpack, but she figured out how to unlatch herself and STAND UP in it, so I struggled with keeping her from tumbling out into the sting ray tank most of the time. Also, my back was sunburned, so the backpack was, well, painful. The dolphin show was the best part, and the girls got to talk to a trainer afterward. Amelia squealed with delight as the dolphins waved and leapt into the air, and both Molly and Rebecca announced they now have a new favorite animal. Move over, cat and panda, the dolphin has taken the lead!

Little Surfer Girls

After The New England Tour, we headed back down to the DC area. Peter's company has an office there--a new space, in fact--so the plan was that he would work for the week while the girls and I played in DC. Since we got back on a weekend, we needed an activity to pull us out of the company townhouse (and out from under the feet of the two employees living there!). Plan A was The Beach. However, Amelia maimed her baby toe, ripping the nail off, bleeding profusely and leaving the nail bed vulnerable to things like sand and salt. To give the toe a little healing time, we decided to postpone the beach day trip & stay in the Alexandria area. Cameron Run Park and its family-friendly water park turned out to be the solution we sought! Big waterslides for Mom, Dad and Molly, smaller slides for everyone, waterfalls and shallow pools for Amelia. Hot enough to be grateful for the water, cool enough to be outside the water without cooking. A lovely wave pool with inner tubes for riding the gentle waves. You can just hear the Jimmy Buffet/Beach Boys/UB40 music...(no, I mean, quite literally, you could hear it). A few pictures to prove we were there:

Once and Future Smithies

In an effort to plant the seed in my daughters' brains that my alma mater, Smith College, is a nifty place to get ed-ju-ma-ca-ted, we drove up from New York to Northampton, Massachusetts, for a quick campus visit. The picture above is the girls overlooking Paradise Pond, below is Molly in front of Seelye Hall, where I spent many classroom hours, and all the girls near the greenhouse/gardens. We then hopped up to the Yankee Candle factory store, a place Peter and I visited a few times--both when I was in college and when the two of us lived in CT. At Yankee Candle, it is always Christmas, and you can dip your own candles. Yippee!




To round out the New England part of our adventure, we stopped in Meriden, where we lived while I was in grad school and Peter worked for both Ikon and Eventra. We chose Meriden for its geography alone. I was going to Yale in New Haven on the southern end of the state, and Peter's job would be in Hartford, in the northern part. On the map, Meriden appeared right in the middle, giving each of us a 45-minute drive. So there we landed. We established ourselves as a family, solidified our couple-hood in CT, and we have some truly wonderful memories from there. Molly was born there. She rode around in a baby backpack while Peter rehearsed with the community theater group there. We went to church there. I learned the art of midwifery there. We ate phenomenal Italian food there. Our rental house looks less than lovely now--perhaps it always looked like that and our standards changed? Our very favorite restaurant, Il Forno, is gone, replaced by a Chinese place. This was a HUGE disappointment. On the positive side, the town has had some nice additions, not least of which is a fabulous playground in Hubbard Park, where the girls played ad nauseum. Older abandoned buildings have been demolished--for the better--and there are new businesses all around. We mourned--out loud--the loss of a great authentic Italian joint, to the point that Molly laughingly said, "Get over it!" and jolted us back to reality. Time marches on. We sighed, realizing you can't make your kids love the things you loved--they don't share your memories and, at their ages, they don't care to! You just need to help create new ones together!

Start Spreadin' the News!

The next chapter in The Marshes Invade the Northeast included three days in New York City. Several points drove our desire to include NYC in our trip. First, Molly is obsessed with the Statue of Liberty. She can tell you who designed it, where it was built, what it stands for. Second, we and our children love musicals. They have seen traveling Broadway shows and community theater productions, but we wanted to take them to a show right in the Theatre District. Third, we wanted to share with them the city we frequented when we lived in Connecticut as newlyweds and then as very new parents. It really is a fabulous and unique place--watching all three of our girls experience the city was magical. They noticed things I'd never notice.

Rebecca (age 5) counts as her favorite parts of NYC:
1. Pigeons. She loved them. Announced their presence constantly. Ewww. She stopped counting at 127.
2. Subway. "It smells a little gross down here, but it's SO COOL!"
3. Taxis. She counted 71 of them in the first hour. Riding in one was "amazing!"
4. Tie: American Girl tea party and the indoor ferris wheel at the ginormous ToysRUs in Times Square.


Molly (age 7) names these:
1. Statue of Liberty. "She is Our Lady!" (what does this mean?)
2. Hot dogs from a street vendor. I cannot overstate how much Molly loves hot dogs. We ate one in Battery Park and then again in Central Park.
3. Pizza. (Are you picking up on the theme here?) We drove to Koronet Pizza at 110th and Broadway for the largest pizza slices you've ever seen for $2.50. They used to be $1.50 back in our poor college student days, but what can ya do?
4. Tie: FAO Schwartz toy store and climbing the rocks at Central Park.



Amelia (age 1) indicated from her looks of joy and giggling that she liked:
1. Riding in the backpack. She liked it so much she fell asleep in it.
2. Running around on the base of the Statue of Liberty. After waiting in very long security lines, she was ready for action.
3. Horses pulling carriages in Central Park. "Neigh-neigh! Neigh-neigh!"


Molly, Rebecca and I saw The Little Mermaid on Broadway. I let them choose the show from watching clips on the Internet. Note to self: do not do that next time! It wasn't awful, but it was by far nowhere near the best show I've seen (and I've seen a ton). The scenery and costumes were impressive, the actors are often on roller skates to create the illusion of being underwater, and that's where the cool stops. Molly and Rebecca loved it. Well, Rebecca slept through the last quarter of it, but until then. Peter stayed in the hotel with Amelia, since she in generally out cold by 7:30, and he did a little work. The next night, he went out with the big girls to the ToysRUs and its ferris wheel. He also let them get another street hot dog that night ("Don't tell Mom!").


Both Rebecca and Molly have American Girl dolls. These dolls come with a story specific to a particular period of US history and teach lovely little life lessons. The company that makes them does a wonderful job of making parents feel GOOD about buying all the accessories and gear to go with the "starter" doll set. After all, your children learn a lot from this toy. Whatever. Anyway, there is an AG store--a giant one--in Manhattan, and the girls and I had tea there. The dolls get a seat at the table, and we all dressed up for the occasion. Molly chose to get a bathrobe set for her WWII-era doll, and Rebecca opted to have her doll's hair done at the salon. Perhaps the best part was the hook in each bathroom stall for your doll to wait while you powder your nose. There's even a doll hospital in there.


Here we are on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and then in Midtown after breakfast: