Annie & Charlie's Birthday

My sister decided to have a combined birthday to save herself some work. Charlie & Annie's birthdays are about a month apart, so she decided to have 1 party for all the family and then Charlie is having a kid party. It was fun to see everyone and Annie was all dressed up for her big day. She has a little bow in her hair. Caden is showing her how to use her new toy piggy bank. (my mom is reading the directions). This was just a cute picture - Caden & Charlie are looking out the window to see what Grandpa Rick is doing. He brought them balloons since Charlie's escaped out the mini van after Caden's party.

Charlie & Caden are testing out Charlie's new wagon. They like it, it has cup holders.

Now for the cakes! Jeannette made a light saber cake for Charlie. He loves star wars and so it's only fitting that he got a cake.

Jeannette made Annie a doll cake. My mom used to make Doll cakes for us and we thought they were pretty great. So when Jeannette pushed us to make the pirate cake for Caden, she realized, she could definitely make the light saber and doll cake. Good work sister!

Happy St Patrick's day!

We went to the St Patrick's day parade this year again, and we had more people with us. Charlie & Caden were like little candy magnets. People kept giving it to them. At one point, Caden was drooling blue!

This is Charlie's Great uncle driving the car. Fun to see someone we know in the parade.
This is Caden & Charlie with their candy. it was cold out there, but they were thrilled to have the candy. Jeannette and I started hiding after a while because of last time Caden had too much candy (lots of diaper explosions)!

Speaking of knowing people. The girl in the hat is one of my co-workers. Her husband is in the green tie. :)

A trip to Deer Lake

After my first trip to DC, we went to Deer Lake for the weekend so that Justin could go skiing with my sister and her husband. Her in-laws live at Deer lake and it's close to one of the ski areas so it makes for less driving in a day of skiing. Her in-laws have tons of toys for the kids to play with, including another wiggles guitar. So, of course Caden found the guitar and got busy dancing. Charlie wasn't real interested in that. Caden decided to push Annie around on a truck for a while.

Then Caden & Charlie got out the car ramp and started sending the cars flying. Ken (Charlie's Grandpa) made Caden a ramp too, so he has one at our house that he loves to play with.

While everyone was skiing, I was supposed to head home with Caden. I apparently didn't bring my purse with me for the weekend, and I didn't want to drive the 45 minutes back to Spokane without a license, so I stayed put. Caden & Charlie climbed up this snow burm with Ken.

Fun times were had by all at Deer Lake.

Working in Washington DC

I have been to Washington DC for 2 weeks out of 3 weeks. I am a happy to be home. We had a great trip for work and met up with the Hartford CT CVB and the Madison WI CVB and did some dinner events and sales calls during the 2nd trip. The first trip was for a trade show. During the second trip, I feel like we mostly ate and talked. Not a lot of healthy eating and not a lot of exercise.... Below is a group of us at dinner one night. My boss Keith is at the bottom left. This picture does not do this dessert justice. We went to bucca di beppo and I wanted to have a little tiramisu. This is what I got - a serving bowl with serving spoon. Don't worry, I had a few bites and shared most of it.

The rest of the pictures are not in order, but we were able to do some sightseeing on the last day. It was a whirlwind of site seeing and really cold outside.

This is Arlington Cemetary, below.

This is the back of the Lincoln Monument from Robert E Lee's house at Arlington Cemetary.

Another shot of Arlington Cemetary.

The Lincoln Monument - notice my ear warmers. It's about 35 degrees out. When we arrived in DC it was 70 degrees.

This is a picture of the back of the capital building. That is where the inauguration took place and the grass area was still a mess.

The Washington Monument - we didn't go in this time, just walked by.

We also went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. We saw the orignal star spangled banner on display along with a lot of school groups. I really like that these museums are free. At least I know where some of my tax money is being spent and it's a worthy cause. I hope to be able to squeeze in some other museums on future visits. We will see what the schedule brings me. Next trip to DC is in September.