Happy Birthday Lucas!!!

Hope you have fabulous birthday!  

Our BnB Closes for the Summer

Adrian hugs Stirling good-bye

Our house has been turned into a bed and breakfast this summer; nothing out of the ordinary actually.

Today is the last day we have guests scheduled until my parents in September.

We love having friends and family come to stay, visit, and play.  We have had someone here since May 24th-Augaut 4th-- 73 days and 20 people staying. We now ready to have a non-guest filled days.

Let's recount guests and days:

Helen the Serb, with her two cats (Katerina and Julian) and her dog, Chloey: May 24th-June 3rd (10 nights)

Jaro the Slovak: May 29th-July 16th (49 nights, with a week away for a US tour; and we had an arrangement, if you will)

Edward: June 7th-10th (3 nights)

Michael, Patty's friend, June 8-11th (3 nights)

Linka the Czech: June 20th-24th (4 nights)

Andy the Slovak (Jaro's brother): June 27th-July 15th (19 days, with a week away for a US tour)

Jason's quick stay before he went to decolonize: July 5th (1 night)

Tim's surprise drop in: July 14th (1 night)

Brock, Erin, Lucas, and Lee's family vacation: July 20th-July 24th (3 nights x 3 rooms)

Jeanna, Dave, Isabel, Josh, and Ethan's cousin visit: July 30th-August 2nd (3 nights x 3 rooms)

Jana the Slovak, Jerome the Frenchman, and Adrian their son short stay before moving back to CA: August 1st-4th (3 nights x 1 room)

If we were a hotel that would add up to 111 room nights.  (This of course doesn't include Will and I or Kelly, our basement tenant. )

If we add up the total nights someone is staying here: 82 nights (taking 14 days out since Jaro and Andy weren't here).

That's a lot of toilet paper, sheets being washed, and meals being cooked. We really should become professionals at this; after all we are already semi-pro.

Gargoyles

With Brock, Erin, Lucas, and Lee, Will and I walked up to the National Cathedral for the gargoyle tour.  We have lived two blocks from the Cathedral for 6 years and never gone on this tour and, to be honest, we will never go again (nor recommend it).  It started out in the 7th floor of the Cathedral--where anyone can go without paying the $10 per person for the tour-- and a slide show of the 112 gargoyles.  Okay, okay, a powerpoint, but still we were shown a show of the gargoyles and how they work.  We had to wait for about 25 minutes for the power point to begin because they speaker (an older volunteer) didn't know how to turn on the machine.  Will fell asleep; Brock and I were playing on our phones; and Erin was trying her hardest to keep Lucas interested/entertained.

When we finally finished the slides, we went down, outside, and listened to the same spiel again, only this time, we were about 20 feet from the Cathedral, and even further from the gargoyles.

After we found the Darth Vader gargoyle, we left the tour and wandered around the inside of the building.  I went back up the to the 7th floor observation desk and spotted our house!

When we were finally done in the gift shop, we walked over to Two Amys for delicious pizza.  As we were finishing our dinner, a family came in that were on the gargoyle tour as well.  They stuck it out and were an hour behind us.  So glad we left the tour early!

Moon rock Window

Stormtoopers and the seal

Lucas by the seal of the Commonwealth

beautiful day for the Cathedral

two of the 112 gargoyles

pinnacles of the Cathedral

How did you feel about the powerpoint introduction?

One of the dogs and another fish gargoyle

May the Force be with you

Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial

Capitol Building with the Library of Congress behind

aerial shot of the Bishop's Garden

Discovery at Home

Remember this?

With Erin, Brock, Lucas, and Lee visiting from Louisville, I got my excuse to go out to the Dulles Air and Space Museum to see the space shuttle Discovery in its new home.  It replaced the Enterprise, which went to a new home in New York.

The shuttle is simply amazing.  It is both huge and small, at the same time.  The tiles are individually screwed on.  The wings and tail have wind damage on them.  The engine exhaust pipes are massive.
It is just a masterpiece of engineering and it made me very sad that the moon program at NASA has ended.

And as I suspected, the whole of the museum was a great hit.  Lucas, wanting to see the Air and Space Museum because of the movie “A Night at the Museum II”, was at first sad that we weren’t going to the main museum.  Then he saw the planes and helicopters and jets hanging from the ceiling.  Subsequently he has decided that this museum is his favorite (though, that might change when they visit the Spy Museum).

Happy Birthday, Erin!

Happy Birthday, Erin!
Hope your day is marvelous and full of fun!
We'll raise a glass (or 4) in your honor!

Erin Came First

Though that sounds dirty, I realize that I have to say that this is the year of also knowing Bays Yates for 13 years. I didn't do an anniversary post in May--or was it March when we started at Captain Quarters together, because in my head, Erin has always been there. But, to Erin, my lovely, my dear:

.reverof dna won, sdneirf era ew yppah oS .uoy eroda I dna lufrednow era uoY.

Lucas's cars

The best present for children ages 3 and up: Automoblox. It's cars and legos combined. It is even good for the fathers of children ages 3 and up....Or for boyfriends of godmother's of children ages 3 and up....