Ouch. It breaks my heart a little to see how much time has gone by since my last post. So many things have happened, I hate to think about all the cute moments I've completely forgotten and wont ever be documented.
I guess dwelling on all that is only so useful so lets move on to the good stuff. Where do I start?
Probably the first thing you should know is we moved from Maryland and are back in the West. Was this the plan? Absolutely not! I seriously doubt Kimball and I would have moved our family and everything we owned to live in Maryland for less than a year. But as is the tendency when you're working for the military, surprises come up. Some of them are things that are in your control and some of them are not. In the end I'm glad we were there even though it meant a lot of moving stress and worry on Kimball and I, yet another school for Kaden, and having to say goodbye to so many good friends we made while there. I think the experiences we had living in Maryland were bucket-list worthy! I love that we were able to have those adventures as a family. In those few months we made so many memories that Kaden at least will remember and the girls will look at through pictures and hopefully think its neat they were there.
One of our last big adventures in Maryland was a trip we took to Gettysburg with my parents. Jocilyn was sick that morning so Kimball stayed home with her since he'd already been there during one of his military trainings.
Gettysburg was a great experience. It was one of those things I couldn't see us not doing while we were back east. We spent most of the time inside at the museum, which was really interesting. Mostly I was trying to keep the kids from being too loud and to explain why the different uniforms, guns, and everything else were interesting, but I think everyone enjoyed the experience. After the museum we drove ourselves on a car tour to some of the different sites where the battle took place. The whole area was beautiful. It is sobering to think about how many people lost their lives there and what it must have looked like so long ago. I'm glad they've been able to turn it into such a peaceful and beautiful place for us to remember now.
Our official last adventure was back to D.C. where we went to the National Gallery of Art. I know there are a couple of different ones in the National Mall, we went to the one without the modern stuff. We wanted to see DaVinci, Van Gough, Monet and all those guys.
This was a terrifying and amazing experience! Terrifying because we had the kids and to my surprise these paintings didn't have protection. A couple had a little velvet rope in front, but most had nothing. Try explaining to a five and six year old why they shouldn't smear their hands all over that thousand year old painting. To be honest I don't know how these treasures have lasted as long as they have with so many people (and kids) being around them. The kids were really funny. When we walked through the statue gallery I heard Jo's squeaky little voice say "Kaden look, this guy's naked!" Kaden then burst into laughter and from then on their favorite game in the room is to run around laughing at all the nakedness. Needless to say we really killed the reflective mood they were going for in there.
On the flip side Kimball and I were completely awestruck when we weren't wrangling our kids. You know that old board game Masterpiece? My knowledge of art doesn't expand much further then what I remember from that game, but it was pretty surreal to walk through all these rooms recognizing my favorites from that game: aka. Little Dancer by Edgar Degas. Sad I know. There was about a month after the museum when I still remembered all my favorites and how they compared to each other that I considered myself informed on the whole deal, but that's gone now. Why didn't I blog about this sooner then I would still feel smart when it came to art!
As it stands now I can only tell you how cool it was to see these famous artists side by side. I knew I'd love Monet, because how can you not, but Rembrandt really stuck with me. The DaVinci was pretty far off the most beautiful in my uninformed opinion, but I still think it's awesome that I got to see one. The biggest surprise to me was how much I loved Van Gogh. I never really got what made his stuff much better than some of the other great works of art until I saw it for myself. After walking through room after room of famous and gorgeous artwork it was refreshing to walk into Van Gogh's room. He really did things in a completely different way. You've probably heard before that he used a lot more paint then was typical. Guess what! He really did! I sound ridiculous saying it like that, but seeing it in person was very cool for me. This was a room I thought especially could have used to protection, though I'm glad it didn't. I'm a grown adult and seriously had to talk myself out of touching his work. It was so cool.
I should probably wrap up my career as an art critic now, but if you're going to D.C. anytime soon I highly recommend going to the National Gallery of Art--maybe without kids though.
That mostly wraps up Maryland for us, minus a few more blue crab nights, afternoons on the beach and Amish market visits. I really miss their blueberry fritters by the way.
So many more things have happened this year. It was seriously one of the most eventful ever. I promise to write again soon and fill you in on the rest of our news (spoiler: new baby!) Hopefully even add some pictures, but lets take baby steps as we get back into the swing of things.
