Spring 2023 in the Bailey House

 I actually get annoyed at myself because I never want to write these posts, but they always wind up being my favorites!

Well, we all remember when THIS happened around Valentine's Day - Todd decided to tackle the ceiling himself (much to my dismay!)

Ok, I admit, it was coming along better than I expected. He decided to also add an access panel so that if it leaks AGAIN, we can at least get up in there without having to tear out the entire ceiling again.

Dang, that looks pretty good Todd!  Job well done!

We went out to see the new Dungeons and Dragons movie after church and dinner one night, but we had some time to waste, so we went to the Park That We Know in Natick (this is what Natalie called it when she was a tiny toddler.)

The clubhouse at the Park That We Know hasn't changed, but these kids sure got bigger!

The kids were laughing because they thought the entire park seemed so small. In their minds, it was much bigger. Grant still had fun on the tire swing!

This part of the park was a little too tough for their little legs years ago, so they actually enjoyed this.

Natalie used to LOVE this when she was little. She loved driving the steering wheels and going down the slide (and could do it by herself because it's clearly for toddlers.) Now she's a giant!

We also stopped by Face Children's Center where both kids went to preschool for several years.

The new D&D movie was EXCELLENT, and you can still enjoy it even if you're like me and don't know a darn thing about D&D. These three sometimes play the game on the weekends and Todd plays once a week with his friends online. So they were VERY excited about this movie. I enjoyed it too!

 We also celebrated Todd's 51st birthday!  He might not be a lotto winner, but he's certainly a winner in our books! (Ok, that is officially the CHEESIEST thing I have ever written!)

I got to show off  my mad cake decorating skillz for another year.  I didn't have a five, so I put five candles, and then a 1 ha ha.

Grant decided to try track this spring, and actually really liked it. He liked it a LOT more than cross country. He even made some new friends this year!  His focus was the long jump and the 100 meter dash.

Unfortunately, Grant got sick about a week and a half before we left for Germany and was still a bit sick for Easter, although he was on the mend. You know all about that trip from all of the other posts I did!

We did an Easter egg hunt in the backyard - and you would think my kids were too old for this, but I always put more chocolate in their eggs - and this year, I also put some Euros in their eggs.

My brother and my niece Greta brought the thunder to the Lightning-Maple Leafs game in round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Unfortunately, they lost!

BUT... they did take a picture of my favorite player, Victor Hedman! And the Big Cat, Vasy!

Grant's hair here at this particular track meet was just so wild.

I missed solo night because I had German class (no worries, I got to hear Natalie's solo later at another performance), but here she is with Cora, Hunter and Dee, some of her favorite chorus classmates.

I took Natalie to her first college fair this spring, too!  Auburn wasn't in attendance, but we took this picture at the University of Alabama booth so we could send it to my dear friend Sally (who went to Bama, but we won't fault her for that!)  Probably her two favorite schools though were the University of Tennessee and the University of Oregon!  Weird!

The college fair was held at the Convention Center in the Seaport District and it was MASSIVE.

There was also Cinco de Mayo, and I think Todd got the biggest margarita I've ever seen!

King Charles III was coronated at Westminster Abbey, and since Sara and I have a thing (!!) for Mike Tindall (no... no we don't) who is the current King's nephew-in-law, she came over to my house at 6 am to watch the coronation with me.  We DID get to see our boy Mike, and Sara even got to hold the bourbon orb!

Natalie also got confirmed!  Grammi and Bean, KK, Madison, and Seth all came up from Plymouth/the Cape and even Natalie's Godfather, Uncle Steve came all the way up from Maryland!

You can only have one sponsor though, so KK walked up with Natalie when she got confirmed by the bishop.

Natalie took the name, "Faith" as her confirmation name.

Bishops get to wear cool hats and stuff.

These kids spent the last two years together doing Sunday evening religious education classes and now they're finally confirmed into the Catholic church!

After the confirmation, we all went out to 110 Grille for a very lovely dinner - and some dessert beverages! I didn't notice KK in this picture until after I got home and she totally made me laugh!

After dinner, we took a few family photos outside - here is Natalie with her Grammi and Bean.

And here are Natalie and Grant with Grammi, Bean, Uncle Steve and KK.

Natalie is here with her Godparents and her grandparents!

And here is Natalie with Uncle Steve and Auntie KK.  She is so lucky to have such amazing Godparents!

I snapped this picture of the three siblings laughing (Helen, we missed you!) and it was super cute!

Steve, KK and Todd, in the birth order!

And of course, a picture of the confirmation girl with her parents. 

Let's not forget super cool cousin Madison!

Grant wanted a picture with his Grammi - look, he's taller than her now!

After the confirmation, the four of us went back home and cooked some s'mores out on the back deck because the weather was so nice. Notice Todd is trying to get that weird hand thing going because I put this on the 0.5 iPhone setting!

I didn't get to ASFPM's annual conference in May of this year, which was REALLY disappointing because it was in Raleigh, home to two of my favorite people on the planet, Randy and Steve! I legit cannot tell you how disappointed I was when Steve sent me this pic of the two of them! I should be right there too!  We all used to work (and travel) a lot together in the early days of the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program. Randy has since retired, but Steve is now the NC State NFIP Coordinator!

Also in the spring, I saw this guy a few times running around our yard. I appreciate my own photography skills here when I captured him levitating in our backyard.  I keep thinking he is a muskrat but I really think he might be a woodchuck.

Natalie also had her spring choral concert - and I feel like she had a more active role this year. 

She even got to sing her solo - "Home" from Beauty and the Best on Broadway. She legitimately CRUSHED it!

It was sad when they all had to sing "Like an Eagle," which is the song they sing at graduation.  It makes me tear up every time!

Welp. It was bound to happen. We got our first piece of college mail.

We went to see Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (definitely worth seeing - it was great) but Natalie was super excited to see Khal Drogo (aka: Jason Momoa) in an ad on the wall of the theater. She's been obsessed with Game of Thrones and has declared it's her favorite show ever (hmmm, where have I heard that before? It's my favorite show ever too!)

14 years ago, I got a pedicure and hoped one day, Natalie would finally be old enough to go with me for Mother's Day.

AND LOOK! HERE SHE IS! GETTING A PEDICURE WITH ME ON MOTHER'S DAY! DREAMS REALLY CAN COME TRUE!

I mean, if this doesn't tug at your heartstrings, I don't know what does!

I had to travel to DC for work in May, but the day I got back, my friend Jen picked me up and we headed down to the Xfinity Center to see Ludacris and Janet Jackson. We tailgated and caught up for a few hours before the show.  We got their so early because we were trying to beat Taylor Swift traffic, who was playing nearby at Gillette Stadium.

Janet was AMAZING! She's definitely still got it!

The crowd was super into it too, which always makes for a good show.  

We had a surprise visit from our friends Kern and Dorothy all the way in from California, so we had an impromptu dinner at our house (literally put together a couple of hours before).  Cooch and Karen joined us too, and Karen cut up some apparently VERY juicy tomatoes! ("Karen! You're lactating!")

Cooch also arrived well prepared - with oysters that he grilled up on our grill. I'm pretty sure my kids ate at least half of them.

I did not think that Grant would like these, but he did and he had several! I knew Natalie would like them. She has that kind of taste.  Sadly, these were LITERALLY the only three pictures I took when everyone was here! And that is SO unlike me.

And we're on to Summer!

Trip to Washington DC (for work!)

I had to go down to DC for work (which was the first time I had traveled for work in literally YEARS) but I was able to squeeze in a little sightseeing on the first day I was there.  I had high hopes for seeing more, but work kept me busy so I wasn't able to. But the trip just reinforced my need to bring the kids here!

Auf Wiedersehen, Boston!

And Hallo, Alexandria, Virginia!  Todd and I used to live in the red brick buildings just to the right of the Beltway (off of the tree lined road that crosses over the Beltway).  That seems like a thousand years ago.

I hopped in a cab and headed for my hotel, which was actually in DC, even though my meetings were in Arlington. Hello Washington Monument and Smithsonian Castle, behind it!

Oh and hello there, Watergate Hotel (that I took a blurry pic of out of the back window of the cab!)

After I got unpacked and did a little work in my hotel room, I headed out for some dinner in Old Town, Alexandria. I took the blue line to King Street and started making my way to the waterfront, past Hard Times Cafe, a place that Todd and I frequented many times when we lived there.

I just love walking down King Street. It really has the best vibe.

I sent this to Natalie - "Look how close I am to where you were born!"

Old Town has really pretty architecture.

Stop!  What??? As a former Blockbuster (Music) employee, I love this!

Ahhh, the majestic Majestic!  This is really a beautiful restaurant on the inside, too!

My destination though, was one of our favorite old bars - Murphy's Grand Irish Pub!

Time for happy hour!  Because they actually HAVE happy hour here. Happy hour is illegal in Massachusetts, which is ridiculous because how else can I enjoy a $4 pint??

After Happy Hour, I continued my stroll through Old Town, stopping in front of City Hall where Todd,  Natalie and I used to go to the farmer's market on Saturday mornings in the summer.

Funny story about this house down by the water.  I love looking at houses for sale on Redfin, and I happened to notice this one for sale.  It's up for sale for a mere $2.7 million and it bills itself as the "home where Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman filmed their hit movie "No Way Out"." HA!

I strolled through Founder's Park, right along the Potomac - which is just across the street from the No Way Out house!

What's the story with this tree?  It sits literally right in the water! I guess the Potomac isn't brackish enough to kill it?

The water always seems to be high here in Old Town.  Sometimes the water is so high, it turns the propeller of the USS Pompon submarine here into a little island. The USS Pompon earned 4 battle stars during World War II before being decommissioned in 1946.

Speaking of submarines, I continued my stroll over to the Torpedo Factory. The Torpedo Factory DID in fact make torpedoes after World War I ended from 1918 to 1923, but was later turned into a Federal Records Center in 1950. In 1973, it became the new Art Center, which it still serves as today.

Are they giving something away at the Fish Market?  (No, it just looked like a tour group of some sort, waiting for dinner.)  O'Connells pub there in the background USED to be the site of our favorite place to watch football on Sundays (you know... before we were married or had kids.)  Todd and I would watch the Pats games and then he would take me to the airport down the street to fly back to Atlanta. Back then though, it was known as Bullfeathers. When we moved to Arlington, it changed to O'Connells and has been that ever since.

We once at upstairs and had a nice meal with Todd's parents and his dad's cousin and his wife. And Pop's Old Fashioned Ice Cream used to have the BEST banana ice cream EVER!  It wasn't on the menu on this particular day.

I love a good little history sign!

I love the buildings and architecture in Old Town.  I snapped one final pic of Murphy's for Todd!

But for dinner, I needed to try the new German restaurant - Village Brauhaus.  They had an excellent beer selection, and the brats were delicious but everything else was kind of meh. 

After a heavy German meal, I walked back to the Metro station to head back into DC. The Metro has it's problems, but I still think it's better than the T!

The next day, I took the bus over to Rosslyn and it dropped me off right here:  Right in front of the gas'n'God here at the United Methodist church that was built over a Sunoco station!  Is that $3.65 for a gallon of gas or my soul??

Being in the DC area is such a unique experience in that Reagan National is very much IN the middle of everything.  The airplanes fly super low over DC, Arlington and Alexandria. I took this picture on my way to my meeting and it will never NOT freak me out that the planes are THAT low!

Well, if I have to be in DC for work, at least I have a lovely view of Georgetown University, the Naval Observatory and the National Cathedral!

One night after we had a happy hour, I walked all the way back to my hotel (in Foggy Bottom) with one of my region 2 counterparts, Trevor. This was the view from the Key Bridge, looking south toward the Watergate hotel and the Washington Monument.

Trevor and I stopped for burgers (he knew the chef!) which were amazing!  This one had bacon and a fried egg on it!

We continued on along the C&O canal which is so beautiful at night!  It was so quiet, you would hardly know that you were in a major city!

I particularly liked this tree that was coming out of the ground at a 45 degree angle, right next to this building.

I liked this walk so much, I did it again by myself on another afternoon! Here, I am approaching Fish Market Square, which has been a market since 1795! Interestingly, it was a much larger market before the canal was built starting in 1828.  The canal divided it - with the left side of the canal becoming the regular market, and this side of the canal becoming the fish market.

George Washington dreamed of a canal that went from DC to the Ohio River Valley, but unfortunately the canal stops short in Cumberland, Maryland.

Coal, lumber and agricultural products were transported along the C&O for over 100 years.  Mules with harnesses tied to the boats would walk along the footpath next to the canal and tow the boats. Poor mules.

Most of the buildings along this part of the canal functioned as mills at one point, and this area was very much an industrial area for many years.

Hello there, Mr. Heron. They'd better shore up that retaining wall, or it's gonna be in the canal soon!

Little homes and shops line the quiet canal, which is MUCH less active than M Street which sits up and behind these buildings.

You can see a few active locks along this part of the canal where tour companies still take tourists on canal cruises. This right here is Canal Lock Number 4, which has a bedrock foundation.

These locks were designed back in 1828!  This one, Lock Number 2 has a timber foundation since the bedrock was so far down into the ground.

You can't really see it because the tree is blocking it, but the original timber foundation from 1828 still exists on this lock!

Alas, my time in DC was too short, and I'm looking forward to going back with the kids. But really, who am I fooling... there isn't enough time for that. Natalie is going to be a junior soon and hopefully heading to college. Sniff sniff.  On my flight back, we flew over Scituate! I spy with my little eye Postscript Lane, where Todd and I met in 2002!  See the two bridges along the populated portion of the sandy beach? Right in between there, but directly ON the beach!

And I spy with my little eye Uncle Billy's old house!  Ahhh, we had such good times there.  His house was a few in from the end, directly on the beach.

Until next time, Washington DC!