Butler's Orchard

A little late in the season but we finally had time for a fall family day at a local farm.  This past weekend we headed to Butler's Orchard in Maryland. The farm offers apple picking, pumpkins, a country market, petting zoo, pony rides, slides, mazes, etc, etc.  We had limited to no interaction with those activities because Mason wanted to spend all the time driving trucks....

Luckily climbing hay bundles was also appealing and we got a cute mom and Mason shot.

We got some pumpkins for the front of the house and I grabbed some honey crisp apples and made a delicious apple crisp that evening.  

Nice ending to our family day!

Being tourists in DC - Union Market and monuments

Last weekend we had friends visiting so we decided to do a DC tourist day with them. For lunch we headed over to Union Market. Mark and I hadn't been there yet ourselves, so we got to play tourist a bit too.  The space was very cool and exceeded our expectations! Tons of artisans have booths within the warehouse space so we walked around and surveyed all the food options. There are tons of tables scattered inside and out for dining.

Mason's favorite part was the very oversized cookies from Panorama Bakery. Yum, yum, yum!

After lunch we walked the monuments. Mark captured a nice panoramic from the Jefferson.

Mason enjoyed FDR's dog and the bench at the Jefferson most....

Probably not the highlights for most people but to each their own!

Rocklands and Bluemont Park

When Mark and I were fist dating all the way back in 2002, we both lived in Glover Park and were frequent customers at Rocklands BBQ.  Lucky for us, 4 months before we bought our house in Arlington, a second location opened here. We recently had a family date here with some friends for lunch. Rocklands is such an easy place to take kids and the outside space makes it a dog friendly location in the warmer months.

After lunch we hit Bluemont Park. The plaground area is great - fenced in, lots of shade, lots of different structures, swings and slides.  Here is Mason having fun with his future wife, Lucy!

Rockwall fun!

This sand and wood mixture looks delicious. They will be great at making dinners together!

Water Tots!

After last spring's success with swimming lessons and our summer full of swimming at various places, I was so excited to start up fall lessons.  No more Water Babies, we now met the criteria for Water Tots! Our first class was a few weeks ago and I showed up seeing lots of moms and tots who were previously in Water Babies with us. I was chatting them up about how well Mason did in the water over the summer and with water wings and blah blah blah.  The instructor arrived indicating we could enter the pool and thus began the worst 15 minutes I've experienced in a public place with a toddler.  Mason screamed, cried, kicked, didn't want me to touch him and every bad thing you could imagine until I was dying of embarrassment and on the verge of tears myself and we left half way through the class.  I'm sure this is just the start of the terrible twos but I was also feeling like this was my punishment for all the bragging about my expert swimmer.

I'm relieved and happy to report that the past two weeks have gone a millions times better.  I think after all the independence of the water wings, Mason didn't want to have to be held anymore. He's such a big boy! He's also back to being a top performer in his class...not bragging, it's a fact!