Part III

While we were waiting for our food at the highly recommended Shake Shack, Simone said, "Mom, wook! You gotta' get a picture of 'dis!" Keep in mind, all of this happened before our root beer came.

All Simone wants out of life now is to go back to DC.

Part II

Some pictures of us at The Mall:

 Simone appreciating some art, getting out some wiggles that built up while she watched a video installation about parkour.

Simone went crazy over this butterfly exhibit.

Guess which Mormon is more righteous? Guess which one is more promiscuous?

Spotting some bush babies.

Longer story with this one: Inés likes to growl. We call her "growler." It might be because she has rabies. See, a few days before we took this trip, we moved some furniture in her room, and found a dead bat. I got a good look at it once I got it into the sunlight (right before lying it to rest in the garbage can), and it wasn't too creepy. There are some bats out there with monster faces. But with its furry face, ours was as much like a mouse with wings as you could hope. I took advantage of this exhibit to see if I could identify our bat's species. I didn't quite get to the bottom of it.

This is a Neanderthal funeral. My theory is that the museum uses the exposed breast to make science interesting.

Inés isn't much of a pedal pusher yet.

Amorette and Simone had to take a pickle kabob break.

DC Trip, Part I of III

I had the chance to present a paper at a conference in D.C. this May. Since it's so close to Pittsburgh, and since we don't get nearly enough family trips, we all went. I presented the first day, and it went well. But as soon as my panel was over, I ditched the rest of what was a huge multi-day conference and went into vacation mode. Our trip also coincided with a brief return of our good friends Josh, Jill and kids, who were dropping into D.C. as part of Josh's long-term work assignment in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures with them, but rest assured that the reunion was a lot of fun.

Simone loves to be on anything that moves. Trains, subways, trolleys, buses, Dad, Mom, you name it. Where were we going in this pictures? Who cares? The ride was the event, as far as she was concerned.

The hotel had a pool, so we worked on our strokes, and our lounging technique.

This was Inés' first time in a body of water bigger than a uterus or a tub. Something in the water latched onto her.

We also got to catch up with our other good friends, Brook, Linwood and their baby, who is probably our smallest pal at the moment. This picture captures the essence of the feelings of all our reunions with friends on this trip, well, except that Inés was the only one who was naked while hugging a friend and saying, "I've missed you!"

Here we are after enjoying some pupusas. It looks like Inés ate them all. Actually, she makes pupusas...guess how?