April in Washington, DC

Arrived in DC on April 25 for a six day visit with Allie & Doug and to celebrate the 4-month birthday of August and George! 

I barely made it here on the 25th, having scheduled two hour plus in Miami to change planes from Kingston - only to find myself in a 1 hr 45 minute line-up to go through US Immigration!  They were taking at least 10 minutes with every person and it was painful and ridiculous.  Then I had to go through security all over again, and even the expedited line was long!  I put my runners back on - no explosives found in them - but had no time to tie them up, ran to the 'train' to get to another set of gates and was the last person on the plane as they were pulling up the ramp!  The video with safety announcements was already playing when I sat down. Whew!

Weather has been cooler than recently, though no rain and we are enjoying long walks and outings every day.  Went to the "Newseum" on Thursday, which was incredible: the history and impact of the news, complete with originals of the earliest newspapers from the 1500's.  We spent many hours there, then walked to August's pediatrician appointment, then walked home. A long, excellent day and both boys were good as gold.  We treated ourselves to delivered sushi for dinner!  Friday was walking to the National Zoo, beautiful and very well designed. Though it was a weekday, it was very busy with school trips - so it was a zoo inside and outside of the enclosures. 

On Saturday we went to the Kreeger Museum, which we found in listed as a "hidden gem" in the Washingtonian magazine.  It was, indeed, a hidden gem! A private collection housed in the home of the philanthropists - incredible to see 9 Picassos in the hall, 10 Monets in dining room, and many other works by Pissaro, Sisley, Renoir, Mondrian, Miro, garden of Henry Moores and many others all in one private collection www.kreegermuseum.org

Shopping, chilling out and Sunday dinner today. I'm cooking. Made butter tarts last night :-)

Family dinner in the Lee-MacKay household

Doug reading with August. 

August with Pierre on his 4-month birthday, his blue shirt making his blue eyes sparkle

George with St. John on his 4-month birthday, smiling as always

Brothers on their 4-month birthday

Allie at the entrance to the 'big cats' exhibit at the National Zoo

Lions basking in the sunshine

More lions, more basking

Burrowing Owl

Pygmy Falcon

Bronze statue of otters outside the otter exhibit (which was closed). But reminded me of the Vancouver Aquarium

Graves of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery. We had a Zip Car to go to the Kreeger, so went for a drive and to Arlington on the way back. Very interesting, historic site

Arlington, with some of 320,000 graves

Arlington

This is Beezoo, Allie & Doug's 8 yr old Maine Coon Cat. She has very long hair and ruff, which is prone to matting.  And now the hot weather is here.  So Allie took her to the groomers and decided on a "lion cut" to keep her cool in the summer . . . 

. . .  and here is the resulting "lion", feeling rather foolish and not sure how to sit down without the fur padding on her behind :-)

Beezoo the Lion

. . .  and she is now outa here!