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Virginia Washington DC

Mt. Vernon Trail – A Bike Date

We are used to a weekly Thursday night date. It doesn’t matter what we end up doing, we could run errands, see a movie, go out to dinner, play a game of laser tag, anything. We just always went out on Thursday nights and tried not to let anything get in the way. I looked forward to it every week, because we got to reconnect and just talk without being interrupted by little ones. Since we left Utah, however, date nights have been far and in between. Babysitters are more expensive, we are busy, its an unfamiliar place, yadda, yadda. Truth is, I think we just got lazy.

We decided one week that it was definitely time for a date. A BIG one. Thankfully, we had met some friends in Virginia that live on our street and we LOVE to swap watching each other’s kids. Our children play great together, we both homeschool (so all the kids are home during the day), and we think a lot alike. Anyway, it was her turn to babysit, so we decided to cash in all our favors and take an afternoon to ride most of the Mt. Vernon Trail. It is one of the more popular paved pathways in the Washington DC area and for good reason. It was beautiful!

We started about 2 miles south of Mt. Vernon (who knows why – don’t do it. Just park at Mt. Vernon and ride from there), rode up to Gravelly Point, watched a few airplanes land, and rode back. We stopped in Old Town Alexandria for an AMAZING Thai lunch which then threw us behind schedule so we didn’t have time to go all the way to the Arlington National Cemetery. Oh well. The food was worth it. We clocked 35 miles, which is pretty good for not having really ridden my bike since our century last spring.

We definitely recommend this trail. There are lots of ways to ride it – or ride pieces of it. The Mt. Vernon website even suggests renting bikes in Alexandria, riding to Mt. Vernon and then taking a boat back. Sounds like fun!

Mt. Vernon Trail Bike Date

Categories
Outdoor Gear

Walkie Talkies – Adventure Magic for Kids

Nearly every outdoor outing can be made more fun with the addition of some walkie-talkies. We have had a few for years, and just recently added a few more to spread among our growing number of interested children.

We wanted to get new radios that worked well with our previous ones, so we made sure to get ones that are FRS compatible. Mostly based on price, we bought a few Motorola MH230R radios. After using them on most of our recent adventures, we love these new radios. In fact, we’ll be ordering a few more shortly.

Most of the Motorola FRS radios come with a rechargeable battery, and you can either use the rechargeable battery pack, or standard batteries. These new radios we bought use three AAA batteries in place of the battery pack. When you have the battery back in place, you can even charge these radios with a standard mini USB cable. FRS radios allow you to select one of several channels, and also one of a number of ‘security codes’ which help filter out any other users of the same frequencies.

Our kids love playing with the radios, and we get the added bonus of being able to talk to the kids while they are exploring and running ahead on our hikes. Might I pass along a few things I’ve learned about kids and radios:

1. Teach them to hold the radio away from their mouth when they talk. We frequently remind them “don’t eat the radio!”
2. Teach them to hold down the button while they talk. Then release it, and give others a chance to respond.
3. Teach them to keep the radio on, until the adventure is over. A radio that is off

Give a few radios a try, and you may find they add more to an adventure then you expected!

 

Categories
Most Popular Posts National Parks Washington DC

Protest Rally at the National Mall during the Government Shutdown of 2013

We stumbled into a protest rally. The weather had finally stopped raining and church wasn’t until 1pm, so my visiting family and I decided to take a quick trip up to Washington DC to tour the monuments Sunday morning. Sam and I had visited the National Mall earlier in the week to see how closed things really were during the government shutdown (see that post here) and we figured my parents would be able to see something. Turns out we got more than we bargained for.

The visit started like our previous one. We walked past the pathetic attempt at a barricade and up to the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial stairs where the real barricade was located. Turning around I looked beyond the Reflecting Pool to a giant crowd of people, flashing policeman lights, and camera flashes in and around the World War II Memorial. A protest rally? Sweet!! “C’mon guys! Let’s go take photos!!” I urged my family. No takers. Rumor was that Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, and former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin were down there and involved and I was itching to go watch the craziness.

We do the responsible thing and head over to the Korean Memorial instead. 10 or 15 minutes later as we are leaving the memorial and deciding where to go next, we notice that people are streaming up the Lincoln Memorial stairs. “What?” I quickly text Sam at home and ask if the government just opened? Isn’t it Sunday? I thought they didn’t even meet on Sunday? What’s going on? Naturally, we head over to investigate and get up in the memorial while we still can.

The protest rally had come to us.  Hundreds of war veterans, some dressed in uniform, some wearing t-shirts, some carrying flags, had removed the barricades, tossed them onto the lawn below, and were encouraging the tourists to “Come up! It’s open!”.  Thousands of people thronged the Lincoln Memorial. Their enthusiasm was contagious. Everyone was shaking hands, thanking the veterans and taking photos. Then came the police.

“Boooo!” we all shouted. “Go away!” Poor guys. How would YOU like to be in charge of reinstating the unwanted fences and clearing all those people out? No thank you. As law enforcement attempted to move the barricade pieces back in place, the war veterans and various onlookers formed a human wall and got in their way. Shouts of “Tear down the wall!” rang out over the plaza followed by cheers as veterans wrestled the barricades from the hands of the police and once again deposited them on the lawn.

As the human wall reformed,  a lone voice began singing the National Anthem and was soon joined by the entire crowd.

“O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!”

God Bless America.


 

Categories
Homeschool Thoughts on Life

Back to School?

Homeschool.

Something I never thought I would do. Or want to do. Or even consider doing.

Who does that?

We do.

I think we’ve finally settled into a routine. The first couple of week, however, were pretty rough. Not going to lie. We struggled with expectations (Rachel) and sitting still (Andrew) and the ultimate distraction (Cara). I started to question my sanity on this whole venture, but then I remembered when Rachel would come home from 1st grade every day for at least a month and cry her little eyes out. “It’s SO hard.” “My teacher is mean.” “I’m SO tired.”  Yeah…. I think we are doing slightly better than that.

I also waged a war with my perfectionist side. I wanted everything to be perfectly organized, ready to go, every subject needed to be planned in advanced. I needed to have a 2 week schedule mapped out and know exactly which worksheets they needed to do, which crafts, and when we were going on field trips. The entire week before we “started” school, my kids BEGGED for us to begin. “PLEEEEEASE can we start school mom? PLEEEEEASE???” I thought they were nuts. It didn’t help that all their friends in Utah started the week before and all these cute photos of kids standing on their front porches kept popping up on my Facebook feed. I wasn’t ready, so I kept putting them off. I was still waiting for xxx to come in the mail, or I hadn’t thought about zzzz subject and didn’t have a “plan” yet. I finally ran out of excuses and we started on August 26th. After the Utah crowd, but before the crowd out here in Virginia. And you know what? The universe didn’t explode. See how happy they look??

We have our ups and downs, but for the most part I think we might actually survive this.

Categories
National Parks Washington DC

The National Mall during the Government Shutdown

How closed is it? Really?

With family scheduled to come into town the following day, we decided to take a quick trip up to the National Mall today to see how closed it really was. We had seen photos on the news of barricades, police officers, even canine patrols designed to keep the general population out of the memorials and monuments while the United States government is closed. Before dragging family up there we wanted to make sure you really couldn’t see anything (and therefore not waste our time) and maybe I’d even get some great photos in there while I was at it. Okay, the photos were really the driving the factor. I really wanted photos of all the closed signs, because years down the road I’d have photographic evidence that we were there when it happened. This is epic you guys.

Here’s what we found in front of the Lincoln Memorial:

Guards. Yes, there were guards & policemen. Mostly I think they looked bored. This guy maybe looked a little annoyed too.

National Mall during government shutdown

Closed Signs & Caution Tape. Most of the tape has been torn down by previous visitors, but the signs are still intact.

 

We also took the kids down to see the Washington Monument (which we hadn’t done yet). I was actually pretty impressed with these policemen as we chatted for a bit. Turns out, they might not be able to get gas for their cars. Everything is done in the fleet system and they were unsure if the gas pumps were being refueled or not. They also mentioned that they were glad visitors were able to see the monuments despite the closure. As long as you didn’t move a barricade (just find a gap) you could go in. If any officer or law enforcement agent approached just mention you are exercising your first amendment rights and protesting the government shutdown. All they can do is politely ask you to leave. Sweet.

National mall closure during government shutdown

We also visited the Korean & Vietnam Memorials with success, but that’s a post for another day. Short answer? We are good to go.