"Where Uncle Phil go?"

My brother visited us from Los Angeles for a couple of days this week. He quickly made three young new friends, including 2-y.o. Diesel, pictured here finding a shoulder to lean on at The Awakening in DC. (I'd hoped the statue would be partially submerged after all the rain upstream; but we got some great pictures anyway.)

[UPDATE: the day after posting this, I read that "in the coming months" the Awakening would be moved across the river. I'm pretty sure it will lose some of its charm -- but we'll see...]

It was great to see Phil and his nephews interact, really for the first time. (Previous encounters were all at some kind of family reunion, with kids relegated to a separate room, and lots of competing activity.) In fact, I don't think our boys have bonded so eagerly with any other visitor. A few hours after Phil left, Diesel headed toward the guestroom: "Where Uncle Phil go?" He wasn't very pleased with the answer he got.

On Phil's last evening here, he and I escaped to the nearby brewery for drinks and conversation. Not a frequent occurrence for me anymore ... with anyone! let alone my brother from another planet. Quite a treat. Funny though, we were both tired enough that we stopped to get coffee on the way. (He can blame his fatigue on jet lag and time zones; me I'm just a doofus -- no matter how hard I try to pin the blame on baby Timo.)

Here's to more visits from Uncle Phil.

Gratitude

I'm such a lousy blogger that I forgot to bring a camera on our early-morning visit to the Washington cherry blossoms last week. So imagine, if you will, standing under a canopy of translucent Yoshino blooms that both glowed from the gentle sun shining through them, and shimmered and flickered in the reflections off the Tidal Basin... all of this against a cloudless blue backdrop.

Less famous, but equally delightful, is the Awakening statue at the tip of Hains Point. On this day, its appeal seemed especially broad: toddlers sat on the statue's teeth and fingers while high-schoolers dared each other to jump off his knee, 12 feet down to the ground.

It was a much more successful visit than we had any right to expect, especially with three little boys along for the trip: we found parking on the Potomac; missed the crowds; soaked in the day's best light and springtime warmth; and were home by mid-morning. And wouldn't you know it, the remainder of that week turned rainy and increasingly cold. "Lord, you give us what we need -- and sometimes so much more."

A few days later, I caught a nice picture of the unseasonable weather: I'm not sure when the DC area last saw snow in April, but there it was. I took this out our front window as we were waking up. (Click to see the full-size picture.)


With all of our sickly grass hidden under snow, the front yard looked pretty inviting! Hopefully this spring & summer we'll get it to look nice even without snow on it.

Tonight we took in another Washington-area delight, a Bowie Baysox game. There's something magical about a baseball diamond bathed in electric lights under a richly hued evening sky.

Because this is the Minor Leagues, the mood is calm and relaxed; the playing is great but the stakes are low; and tickets are cheap or free. We had comp tickets, so we didn't mind leaving after the 3rd inning (!) to get the boys into bed. Well worth a return visit.