Yesterday was my husband's birthday, a fitting day for a very humorous kinda guy! He got the MOST adorable birthday card from his niece, calling E his favorite Oinkle, with a picture of her in the pig sleeper we got her last year!
We met 2 friends of ours in DC for a day of touring museums, hanging out, going to an IMAX and shopping as it turns out. It's also the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC too, we've been to it before and though it's a beautiful site for sure, it's a mob scene, the kind of festival you enjoy by going very early in the morning and leaving by 10AM! So we didn't see it this year but we sure did experience the crowds in the museums.
Here's a picture of R, K, E and I on the National Mall.
K, when you finally find out about the adoption, I hope you (along with many others) can understand, that we needed time to sort through the mounds of paperwork, emotions and stress that the paperchase can be. We are waiting till the end of April to tell everyone. The only ones who know were those selected as references or our daughter's guardian, so I guess a big fat Sorry Mom goes out to my Mom too, I know that she will understand though, because she was so close to us as a result of all Eric and I through and how she recognized frequently and openly the deepness we were and will always be impacted by it.
We took in both the Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Natural History, along with an Imax on Aliens of the Deep. Everything was wonderful, weather was great and the time was relaxing, just what the doctor ordered.
One sad thing occured towards the end when we noticed several people, old (father's handing them to their sons for photo ops, an elderly woman on the train) and young (kids) mind you, who tore a souvenier branch off the Cherry Trees. Eric spotted it first and then we couldn't help but notice more. How sad... first, I think it's against the law, and more so than anything, it's incredibly selfish, if everyone took a branch off in just one year (they say several hundred thousand people visit), there would be nothing left to see the following years. The damage would be irrepairable. What a bunch of selfish jerks, as Eric said. The beauty of the Cherry Blossom Festival is in the moment, it's in the walking through the Cherry Tree groves and the petals falling all around you. It can't be recreated or saved by riping a branch off and taking it with you.
Here's some pictures from 2004:
So, why do people have to be such idiots? Is it a cultural phenomena in the US? is it generational (you'd think not after you saw the generations of older people riping off souveniers) or is it something else? Whatever it is, it was sad to see. We've been to the Cherry Blossom Festival 3 separate years and never taken anything with us that we didn't arrive with.
Oh well.
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