FFF! FFF!

One thing living in Japan taught me was that we tend to take the places we live for granted. While I was in Japan, I visited most of the island of Kyushu, and loved it, but when I'd ask my students what I should go see, they'd all insist that the area around Sasebo was super boring. It's the same everywhere; ask a native what to see in an area, and they're likely to start by saying there isn't much worth seeing. With this attitude in mind, Zack and I determined that we would not waste our time in D.C. We want to take advantage of the chance to see our nation's capital. So we resolved to try to do one museum/activity every week. We went to the national aquairum one week because of Ela's love of fish, and then we got snow dumped on us and the outings stopped. Last weekend, we started up again. This time, we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
In honor of the occasion (and because I've been dying to try it) I did Ela's hair in pigtails. They didn't last even until we got out the door, but it was fun to try anyway. Now I just need better hair ties.

Ela rode in her stroller for a lot of the trip, but she did come out to sit next to her Daddy on the metro.

We chose the Natural History Museum in hopes that it would have enough to look at to keep an 11 month old happy for a few hours. At first, we weren't sure it had worked, even though there was a giant Sophie (among other animals). Ela has a small rubber giraffe named Sophie that she loves way more than the one in this picture.

But then we got to the Austrailia section and Ela saw a Kangaroo. Except she doesn't know kangaroo. She knows dogs, and that's about it. Every day, we spend a lot of time pointing at our Dory dog and saying "Doe Daw FFF FF!" Which is Ela speak for "Dory Dog Woof Woof!" All I have to do is say "Dog" and she responds with very excited Ela woofs. It's really quite entertaining.
Back to the kangaroo. We knew she was interested in it because she suddenly sat up straight and began emphatically saying "fff! fff!" We laughed a great deal and then told her it was a kangaroo. Of course, she's an 11 month old, so this produced no change in her behavior. We spent the rest of the visit telling her the names of animals, while she insisted that they all say "woof!"

See! It's a really big dog, right? Anyway, we didn't get to nearly the entire museum before Mommy and Daddy got tired. We intend to go back and check out, among other things, dinosaurs. I wonder if they say woof too...

Snow Days

Halfway through the great snow of 2010, we decided to take advantage of a clear day and see what the weather had done to the city. Here's what we saw.

Zack has better balance, so he got Ela. She had a great nap while we walked.

The sidewalks were mostly clear, but sometimes we had to walk in the road.

We picked up supplies at the Eastern Market.

The bit of melting that had already happened made for some great ice.

I just love walking in DC.

There were a few broken limbs.

And more than a few friendly snowmen.

Since the snow started again that evening, and we were stuck in the house for a few days after that, we were glad we got out while we could.