Happy Easter

Wow, it is windy here. Jon, Jeni, Kelly and Andrew said we brought the wind with us - which makes sense. : ) Usually, it is not that windy here....but today it was super windy.

So, it was a perfect day to fly kites - which we did on the Mall. It was a great day. We picnicked, played bocce ball, threw frisbees, and flew kites. We also hid our eggs and had an egg roll and egg duals.

Here are some pix.

Andrew, Kelly (preggers with Kajsa) Mrs. Przytula, and Mr. Przytula



Kelly and Gerred

For some reason, Tillie is very "into" Quin. She calls the boys "my Howe boys" and she definitely feels they are hers. She REALLY likes Quin though, and will seek him out and call him by name.

Tillie and Quin


Smiley Quin


Jeni, Wes and Tillie

We spent the majority of our day flying kites. Who knew a kite could be so much fun?

Quin and a bunch of us in the background (Jon, Tillie, Harrison, etc)


Quin flying the kite

Quin was definitely the most into flying... and is one lucky little character. His Kite string was cut by a mishap with Hollis's kite, and got stuck on a truck 2 streets away. We recovered it, tied the string, and it was good to go. He flew it into a tree 3 times, and was able to untangle it all 3 times (with the help of Jon and Mr. P). Mrs. P brought the kites. It was a great idea!!!


Quin working hard



Jon, Wes, and the Przytulas watching the kite flying


Hollis gets a turn


Tillie loved flying her Elmo kite, but didn't care if it was in the air or not : )


Tillie


Tillie ran, and on the other end, sweet Hollis held the kite up!

In between the kite flying and frisbee, we snuggled a bit.

Hollis on Gerred

Gerred hid all our dyed eggs by the fountain in front of the National Art Museum.

Our group hunting for eggs

Hey, where is my egg?

Hollis

Wes found his egg

Wes

Tillie still searching for her egg...

Tillie

Gerred thought he was clever, putting Holly's egg in a tree, high up, out of sight in a bird's nest...

Holly


Harrison during the egg hunt

Since there was bird poo on my egg (from the nest) I told the boys to try to catch it as it rolled off the edge...

Catch my egg!

Poor egg, they didn't catch it, and it split open...
Here are the boys laughing about my egg cracking.


After the egg hunt, Przytula tradition says you dual with your eggs. Try to crack the other person's egg by tapping the ends together.

Gerred and Jon dual

Gerred must have won, because then there was a serious face off with Mr. P.

Mr. P and Gerred

After several uneventful cracks, Gerred thinks he gains the upper hand...




Wes was fascinated with the bikes, and kept playing with them.

Wes riding Quin's bike

It was a beautiful day, in spite of the wind. We were able to ride our bikes, picnic with good friends, and enjoy our beautiful capital. These are the fun times in DC!

Cherry blossoms

We ate too much at dinner, so we decided to take a walk. Our dinner was at Church - St. Peter's - which is 2nd street. So, we walked toward the Mall, and the cherry blossoms. We live in DC, it has been the week of the cherry blossoms - Cherry blossom festival, Kite flying, parading, etc, and we haven't even taken advantage. Our last ditch effort was to walk and look after gorging ourselves at the Church potluck.

The mall is only a few blocks from Church. It was a beautiful evening. For once, the boys were feeling photogenic. "Take a picture of me doing this.."

Here are several Howe boys amongst the beautiful cherry blossoms.






As we walked, and looked at the beautiful historic buildings surrounding us, we felt for the first time like we live here, and are not just visiting.



The boys were jumping off of steps and an AP photographer took some photos of them. Keep your eyes posted for a Howe child in an AP photo in the newspaper in front of a government building in DC. Wouldn't that be cool!

Side note:
Gerred and I were driving around the Mall area during the week of Cherry Blossom festivities and noticed a crowd of people, balloons, tents, etc. Obviously something fun was happening, and we were unaware of what was going on. At a stop light, I suggested we ask someone, and at that moment we both glanced out the window and saw some crowd control workers gathered on a street corner. I was just about to roll down my window and ask them what was going on, when I noticed they were all signing to each other. I turned to Gerred and said "Well, I guess we can't shout at them." We both started laughing so hard at the absurdity of me trying to shout out to the obviously hearing impaired crowd control workers as we were momentarily stopped at a light...oh my. Probably not PC, but funny, anyway. We never did find out what was going on.