National Building Museum

The five of us spend Saturday afternoon at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.  The entire museum was hands-on exhibits for kids to learn how to build various things.  The volunteers couldn't have been nicer or more patient and Will had a blast.

First, he learned about woodworking and he got to use two different planes.

Then he did some spackling with Mom.

Will talked all day about sitting in a Bobcat but when the big moment came, he wanted Daddy to sit with him.  Daddy was all too happy to oblige.

Will even got to lay some mortar and place a few bricks.  Mommy might have helped a bit.

Will also really liked fitting pipes.  He bellied up to the tower that kids were building with pipe parts and he added his token couple of pieces.  He really liked this wrench but it weighed almost as much as he does so it didn't get much action.

Peace Corps night at Nationals Park

Wednesday night was Peace Corps night at the Washington Nationals park.  Traditionally, before that game the Peace Corps staff and alum carry out flags celebrating the countries where we've had a presence.  Traditionally, the Nationals were horrible and the flags were displayed to about 5,000 fans.

Now that the Nats are the best team in baseball, this game and the ceremony are pretty special.  Patrick carried out the Kenyan flag (he's second on the left below) before 26,000 fans - he was even on the jumbotron for a moment.  

Patti sacrificed her sanity and brought the kids down for the game and met up with Patrick after the pre-game flag ceremony.  Between the wrangling of the kids and all of the usual commotion, we managed to watch about two innings but the kids LOVED it.  Maggie clapped every time anything happened, Stella sat happily on our laps, and Will enjoyed his pizza and attention from our friends.

Hooray Daddy!

For all of his hard work for the past three years, the Director of the Peace Corps gave Daddy and each of his teammates this award today.

From the size and shape of it, it might have to stay on Daddy's desk at work for a while...