Halloween

Last year, Ryan was on travel in Detroit and had the opportunity to spend Halloween with Dominic. So, when Dominic asked if we were coming to visit this year, we agreed. One benefit of being on the East Coast, is the direct flights to lots of cities. So, was just a short flight for use to get from Dulles to Detroit.
This picture is a little hard to see, but it is Dominic lying in a coffin, holding the candy bowl. Someone else runs the fog machine. Dominic's neighbors all gather together with tons of candy and brave the cold for a night full of laughs. One person will fill Dominic in (i.e., a group of five 10-year olds, or one small child with parents.) He'll then use his best judgement on which ones to let take the candy and which ones to scare. For added drawing power - there was a full size candy bar in the basket. We enjoyed the evening!

The same neighborhood group also gathers for a costume party. We went with Renaissance costumes. There were some really creative costumes - the Beatles, Rosie the Riveter, Willie Wonka, Jon & Kate plus 8, OctoMom, the Village People, and the full crew from Scooby Doo. Most people had thought about their costume all year. We enjoyed the long weekend and the experience.

Jefferson Memorial

The Jefferson Memorial has lots of lighting at night. Nate and Teresa are here to visit, so we stopped by after watching Jersey Boys (a Broadway show that's in DC for a few months).

Clara Barton House

Last Saturday, we toured the Clara Barton house. The founder of the American Red Cross had a warehouse/office/home built just outside of DC. It was an interesting guided tour through the large building that has been restored to the time period that she made it her home.

The Red Cross stained glass windows at the top of the building could be seen from a long ways away to direct visitors.

The front hallway was lined with supply cabinets that were ready for any natural disaster or emergency.

Clara Barton was very frugal and used some creative building materials (like lining walls and ceilings with fabric instead of plaster). However, the woodwork railings were very beautiful.

The view from the outside as you walk up to the building. The basement was only used for storage.

The office was restored and over 3000 original items remain in the house from Clara Barton's time period. The rest of the items were antiques that were similar to items found in photographs.

A guest bedroom that would have been used by volunteers and Red Cross workers.

The front parlor for receiving visitors. The piano was an unusual square shape.

The front of the building. The instructions for the tour were to wait on the porch. We did, and a few other people showed up and then exactly at the scheduled time the park ranger opened the door and invited us in out of the cold weather.

The dining room just off the offices.

Clara Barton's desk.

Clara Barton's bedroom. The crazy quilt was impressive.

It was a very informative tour about the life of a famous American. We were glad to go on it.

2009 National Book Festival

On Saturday, September 26th, we joined what seemed like the rest of the DC metro area on the National Mall for the Library of Congress National Book Festival. We stopped by Borders to pick up a Mercy Watson book for Kate Dicamillo's book signing line and a Steven Kellogg book for his line. We got there right as Kate's time started and Ryan promptly got in that line. It wrapped around four times. I headed off to find the Border's book selling tent to see if there was Pinkerton book. There were so many people in the tent, that a volunteer was guarding the entrance to prevent people to get in. I saw that Steven Kellogg had started signing early and got in his line. Three people from the front, they pulled him for another event. So, I went and got at the beginning of the line for his regular time. Meanwhile, Kate's line had grown to six wraps and her time was up. They decided to extend for another hour. I got Steven to sign my book and headed off to find Ryan. After an hour and 45 minutes of standing in line, they pulled Kate away and said no more. Oh well, at least we got one signed!





In the picture above, you can see part of the crowd. In 2008, they had an estimaed 120,000. I don't think the crowds had diminished this year, and it felt like some of the lines had started the previous year.

We did learn about a new children's serial story being written by all the children's authors who were present this year. You can follow the story here: http://www.read.gov/ It's called the Exquisite Corpse.

Then we headed into the Smithsonian castle for a look at the pile of treasure from the Night at the Museum movie.

Was fun to pick out what everything was. We spotted a Lite Brite, Fonzie's jacket, Ruby slippers, original Nintendo and a whole lot of coins.

After that we walked over to the National Theatre to get our tickets to Jersey Boys and save the ridiculous ticketmaster fees! We're all set for when Nate and Teresa come to visit.

Mount Vernon Take 2

We took advantage of our annual pass and the beautiful weather to visit the other parts of Mount Vernon that we had not seen previously. First stop was the Grist Mill and Distillery. We watched the demo (below) of grinding the grain.

The grain then lands on this sifter and into a barrel.

The outside of the grist mill. The individual pieces were quite large, and so was the overall building. Washington shipped his fine ground flour to Europe and the West Indies.

The distillery was only open for a few years making whisky, but Washington was the largest producer in Virginia.

We then went to Mount Vernon's main property and were pleasantly surprised to find a craft fair and lots of activities going on.

The authentic looking soldier's camp is set up behind this cannon.

While standing in line for the tour of the house, we watched them march up the bowling green.

The demo was really loud! Especially when the entire troup fired at the same time.

Almost closing time, so we wandered briefly through the Lower Gardens (kitchen) and headed back for the exit.

Bowling

It's been a long time since we went bowling, so we decided to try out the Falls Church Bowling Alley. It has a lot of lanes, and was probably once considered state-of-the-art. But the important thing is that Ryan bowled a turkey. (For real, not on the Wii). Here's the proof.

Maryland Renaissance Festival

The last few weeks we've been busy getting ready to go home to the Tri-Cities, visiting friends at home, and helping out with weddings. We're back in Falls Church and decided to take in a truly unique cultural adventure this weekend: Maryland Renaissance Festival. It claims to be the second largest Renaissance Festival in the country. According to their website (http://rennfest.com): Eighty-five acres of parking space handle an average of 14,700 customers daily. The English Tudor village is 25 acres of woods and field that transport patrons to an era of chivalry, bawdiness, and good fun. There are more than 130 craft shops displaying many wares handmade by the village artisans. Forty-two food outlets provide a feast of foods rarely seen at other festivals. Each season, more than half a million beverages are served at the Festival's eight soft drink stands, five beer stands, and five taverns.
We had fun wandering around the village, visiting the shops, marveling at the food (fried everything!) and admiring the costumes.

We happened to wander to the main stage at the right time for the joust. King Henry the VIII and his court were in attendance.

Wandering musicians playing instruments that we rarely hear today popped up around the grounds, played a song and then moved on.

Several of the vendors gave demonstrations, like this hand blown glass demo right at the entrance.

There were tons of games in the Renaissance theme for kids and adults. Here, the kids were shooting ping pong balls out of cannons.

The replica of the crown jewels were in this chapel. The grounds and buildings were amazing.

There were lots of clothing vendors. I like the name of this leather vendor - Holy Cow.

Acrobats had set up right as we were trying to navigate our way to the exit. The last adventure was finding the car.