Today was a slow, mellow day. Very nice to have these kinds of days on your vacation--they're unusual for us because we tend to over itinerize ourselves so that we return tireder than when we left. (How do you like my new, fancified version of the English language?)

Joey slept in until 9:45--the latest ever! I slept in until a little after 10am. I can't really call it sleeping in because I woke up so many times during the night it didn't feel like I slept at all. I was congested so I kept waking myself up with loud snoring.

We were going to go to the fair at the colonial farm but upon closer inspection of the advertisement, we realized it was next Saturday not today so we had a leisurely morning and lunch then packed the kids into the car to visit a nice park in Arlington where the playground equipment is huge and there are big tall tube slides. We stopped first at the Freeman store and museum in historic Vienna which was built around 1860. It was pretty neat and the kids all got those old fashioned candy sticks. Then we walked across the street to go through a caboose that is open to the public every other Saturday. That was interesting, too. When we finally go to the big slide park, there was big orange netting around it with a sign on it saying "Park closed for construction" and the slides were all disconnected. What a bummer!

DeeAnn had a great second plan, though. We went to Colvin Run Mill and Museum where they were making and selling homemade ice cream and we got the last 6 cups of delicious strawberry ice cream with chocolate sauce. It was really good, too. We wandered around the grounds there and found some neat rocks and were inundated with gnats and mosquitoes so we left to visit DeeAnn's parents' home. They have a gigantic home with a huge backyard that is just like a park. The kids jumped on the trampoline and played on the swings for an hour or so and then we left them there to have dinner with the family at Fuddruckers while we grown-ups went on a nice double date.

When we got back to DeeAnn's home, we noticed that Val had a bandaid on his eyebrow. He had whacked his head soundly on the truck door and cut above his eye quite deeply. It wasn't a bad cut but I could tell it should be stitched so it would heal properly. Every time he moved his brow to smile or squint or furrow, it would open up. So we sent him off to get stitches while we got ready for dinner. Just before Val left, though, I was reunited with my husband--yay! He made it back safely from his trip to Scranton and Carbondale, Pennsylvania. He regaled us with tales of his tour of a coal mine and the tiny town he visited and his ancestors. It was pretty interesting stuff.

The doctor said the stitches could wait until after dinner so we met him at the restaurant. We had dinner at a wonderful Afghani restaurant. The food was fabulous--a real melange of Middle Eastern and Indian flavors--lots of spices like cinnamon and allspice plus some heat from peppers but there were other spices, too, that I couldn't pick out. My favorite was the pumpkin in a tomatoey sort of sauce drizzled with yogurt. It was sorta sweet and sorta tart and well seasoned. I wish we could eat there again.

After dinner, Val went back to get his stitch (it only required one) but it took about an hour and a half to get it done at the local Doc-in-the-Box. He thinks it was a waste but when he has this tiny, nearly invisible scar, he'll be glad he did it.

We got the kids to bed and then sat around and chatted and reminisced and talked about our kids for a few hours. It was so nice and so peaceful and it made we wish we saw them more often than every 2 years or so. I wish we lived a little closer so that it would be easier to get together. This area is the only other place in the country that I would seriously consider moving to, though that's not terribly likely given my propensity for putting down roots and staying put. Still, if I ever got the wandering bug, this is where we'd go. We have tons of friends here already (Well, tons being about 12) and would fit in nicely. Who knows--maybe we will someday when I'm elected to congress or something like that. Or when my friend Gary is elected president and I'm appointed Secretary of Education.

It's late now--a little after midnight--so I'm going to post this and head to bed. Tomorrow I'm not sure what we'll do. Joey is anxious to visit the National Gallery of Art to see the paintings of her favorite artists like Picasso and VanGogh and Monet and Cassatt and Rivera and Kahlo. I'm not sure if we'll see all of her favorites, but we'll sure try. Or maybe we'll just hang out here and go to church with our friends. I guess it will just depend on how spiritual we're feeling when we get up.

Night night...

--L