Vacation Update

Where on earth are we? Well, at the moment, in Maryland. We’re on our family vacation right now, and since we have the luxury of a Walmart laptop this year, we can share some of our vacation. How’s this for the coolest drinking fountain ever??

The first leg of our journey took us to the home of friends of Knut and I, a bit outside Chicago. The kids refer it as “Fireman Chris’ house.” Yes, our friend Chris does work for the fire department, but I believe he drives an ambulance. Still, he was more than willing to give the kids a tour of the fire engine.

Each of the kids got their turn to “drive.”

Of course, there needed to be a tour of the ambulance too!

Chris and his wife Heather not only had toys at their house that thrilled the kids to no end, but they had 2 pet chinchillas. Our animal lover here was just in heaven. I must say, they were about the softest animals I have ever felt!

The next leg of our journey brought us to my cousin Juliana’s. She and her husband Ashish, and their 2 little girls live just outside of Washington D.C. Juliana is actually my double cousin. My dad’s sister married my mom’s brother…if you followed that. Juliana and I are only months apart in age and have always been close growing up, so this was a very fun stop for us as well.

Today we took the day off of driving and visited the air and space museum, since we’re doing a science course on astronomy this year, and visited a bit of the natural history museum as well. That was so terribly crowded though, and the kids were so close to melting down at that point that we didn’t get to see as much of that particular museum as we would have liked. David had fun flying in a plane here!

We mentioned to Juliana and Ashish that we didn’t bring our stroller, and surprisingly, they pulled out a few extra, including this double stroller that the boys are in, and Silje and her second cousin Safina are hanging off of.

We had a lunch picnic of chicken salad on croissants on the lawn between here…

and here.

Silje and Safina just can’t get enough of each other! Neither one of them can talk much without twirling, and they love to dance together. Elias is quite smitten with their younger girl, Serina, but he tends to just chase after her in an attempt to hug her, and in his excitement he growls and scares her away, and then his hugs basically smother her. They have a whole new batch of toys at this house too, so they’ve been keeping very busy!

This evening they took us to an amazing restaurant that served Lebanese food, which I had never had before but enjoyed immensely! Elias ate off of our plates, and enjoyed it as well. David ordered chicken strips, but Silje surprised us and chose the pita pizza, which I got a taste of and was amazing as well!

We’ve enjoyed getting to know their little girls, and I must say I love how little Safina calls me “Auntie” in the Indian tradition of her father’s origin. “Auntie, can I hold your hand?” It just melts my heart.

So tomorrow, we’re taking the morning pretty easy and letting the kids get a bit of last minute playing in before we hit the road for a few more hours, and head up to New Jersey to visit Knut’s brother, Jon, along with his wife Kristin and little twin nephews of ours. There we’ll spend the weekend, and most likely have much more to share as well! What a fun trip this has been so far!