Cherry Blossom Trail

We found a new (to us) path, actually part of a small couple of connected trails!  Cherry Blossom Path is just a five minute drive away, in a mostly deserted, barely developed business park, and it backs up to our nearby soccer fields. 

There were several cars in the parking lot, but because of the trail system, we only ran into a few people. It seemed a good balance of solitude and safety.

So much wildlife!  We saw rabbits. Loads of deer.  There's a large herd (I guess, I've seen them both gathered and spread out) several blocks away from our house, and this open space backs up to that. We saw them on the ridge, and one stepped into bushes just ahead of us.

A skunk.  (I'm still laughing.)  Trevor was checking out the woods, knowing somehwere he'd recognize the frisbee golf course, when he spotted it.

Several benches along the way. A small dam at the lake.

I wore my new running shoes that I bought for hiking.  They are truly such a neon orange that they fooled the camera and were washed out.

We went back and took Kota.  She can't be depended on to behave wonderfully, but she did here.  No barking, and she didn't go crazy at the rabbits.  She loved the walk.  She didn't notice this toad --WHICH JUMPED ON HOLLY'S FOOT in an effort to get out of the way.
 

 Photo cred: Trevor

Blue moon rising. Deer on the another ridge.  Beautiful. Kota just watched the deer along with the rest of us.

Another gorgeous night.

Last week

Robert put in a Reverse Osmosis system for our kitchen sink.  YAY!!!!!  The water is so hard that we have to use a water softener, which makes the water completely undrinkable (and it wasn't drinkable when it was hard either, blech).  Jim and Peg have an identical set up, softened water --> RO, and their water tastes wonderful. That was enough to convince us. We've had the system now for several days.  Life-changing around here.  No more mountains of bottled water, two cases or more each week.  This is really a wonderful thing!

Kota got a squirrel on Tuesday.  She was on her zipline in the backyard, the squirrel got, well, squirrelly, and changed course three times before choosing to jump through a hole in the landscape fencing at the end of the zipline.  Except that the hole was a bit smaller than the squirrel.  I'm completely surprised the dog didn't kill the squirrel. But she did bit off the tip of its tail and manage to bite its foot. The squirrel scratched Kota good, leaving her with a bleeding nose before scampering away.  Unfortunately, I don't think it will learn its lesson and stop tormenting her.

Coffee and crochet Tuesday night, and we watched another storm roll in.

On Saturday, I roasted a pork loin.  To make pork green chile.  So Robert could make smothered burritos. I also made avocado salad.  We took them to the Schroes', where Judy had tacos, beans, homemade pico de gallo, and queso, and Peggy and Jim brought homemade salsa, two kinds of rice, and Allen.

Judy made these amazing little things, deep fried strawberry churros, or something like that.

On Sunday, Trevor went with friends to see Ant-Man and claimed it was one of the best movies he's ever seen.   Holly and I hit Starbucks and then the mall, looking in several stores we've never been in before, and she bought a few things from H&M.

And I found this online in our old high school yearbook.

It was a great week, still have much that we want to do this summer, which is really about half way over now.

Trevor is a Senior!

Trevor's plans for his last year of high school are shaping up nicely.  He took the ACT for the second time, improving his score by four points!  We were very happy with that.  The new state law says that school districts will accept SAT/ACT scores as evidence of achievement, so that means no additional CAT testing just for the school district. 

Saved me $25. It also means this is probably the earliest I've ever turned in my required paperwork showing proficiency, and I submitted my NOI.  So easy!

His ACT score also was high enough to test out of placement testing at the community college.  He was very happy about that!  We went down on Wednesday and registered him for Chinese and math.  We have been debating about the math class.  Radford University currently remains his #1 college choice.  A CC math class equivalent to high school Algebra II meets their homeschooler admission requirement.  Our debate is between Liberal Arts Math or Statistics. (Pre-calc is also an option, but I ruled that out due to the instructor.)  Does he take the easier Liberal Arts Math?  It's his first college class, he's likely to ace it, and it will build his confidence.  Or does he take Stats because it's more challenging?  For now, we're sticking with the easier class.  Either class will count as credit at university, although Stats may knock out a degree requirement, and actually the Lib Arts Math might too, depending on the school and the major he chooses.

I want to credits in a foreign language for high school graduation.  At this point, Trevor would have preferred Japanese or Korean, but those are not available for further study at Radford (if he chooses to go there).  Chinese is, AND he has his very own private Chinese tutor, as Holly's taken 2.5 years of college level Chinese.  

He's excited for school to start.  He's planning to take College Composition and the next level of Chinese for spring semester, and another class if he's so inclined. He'll also be using Apologia's Physics, and we'll be looking at a government/social studies program for home too.

After registration, we found a 7-Eleven for Slurpees, parked in the shade and chatted a bit.  He's such a sweet and bright guy, and I am always grateful for the opportunity to just spend time with him.  While I can.  (Yikes!)

Visit to DC!

Holly, Trevor, and I made a quick trip to DC last week.  We left pretty early in the morning, and as is often the case, saw trucks carrying interesting cargo along the way.  Holly popped in The Partridge Family Greatest Hits CD, to Trevor's dismay.  I sang along, audibly, also to his dismay.

We passed a couple of semis carryingturkeys

We parked at the hotel, FREE parking, just across the river from DC. I was very happy with my hotel find.  From there, we walked a block up to the Rosslyn Metro Station, bought a couple of passes, and hopped on the train.

The Metro was pretty good.  In my opinion, it's pretty expensive and usually just as easy to drive in. But with free parking and the discounted pass cards, it was worth it, plus the experience makes it fun too. We changed our destination stop at the last minute, successfully transferring trains (yay!), figuring out the best way to get seats (and not feel nauseous, another important feat!), and landed at Union Station for our lunch.

 

This was pretty much Trevor's planned out trip, as he'd done several activities with TeenPact last year that he wanted to share with us.  The architecture of Union Station was beautiful.  There were several different sections with food court style restaurants.  Trevor already knew he was going for Japanese.  Holly and I opted for Greek, partially motivated by the great reviews I'd read online.

Outside the station.

From Union Station, we walked toward the U.S. Capitol. 

 Note the scaffolding surrounding the Capitol dome

It was pretty hot outside, blue sky and about 90.  We had a scheduled tour time with plenty of time to spare (yay, makes me happy about my planning!).  We people watched.  Such an interesting mix of real DC workers, tourists, and loads of Capitol police. 

When we got to the Visitor's Center, we were offered an earlier tour.  Perfect!  Stunning building, architecture, art.  Really beautiful. 

 The Rotunda

 Renovations at the top

The tour was pretty good, informative, lasting about 45 minutes.  We had a good sized group, maybe 30 people? Everyone is given radio headsets to hear the guide.  That worked so well.  Very organized, tour groups everywhere.  It struck me that every Congressman should be required to take the tour when re/elected and hopefully be reminded about their real duties.

Following the tour, H&T wanted to continue to look at the various sculptures around the Capitol.

This statue of Father Junipero Sierra was donated by the state of California.  It's a name I remember well from my several years of California history and also a prominent statue along Highway 280 to San Francisco.

Kamehameha from Hawaii.

 Chief Washakie from Wyoming.

We then made our way through the underground tunnel to the Library of Congress.  Words, even pictures, can't reflect how amazing this building was, the most visually stunning, vibrant of all of the pretty buildings we saw that day.  The art of the architecture and paintings in one, the way the light came into the windows. I could never get enough of that.

The Library is home to the original Giant Bible of Mainz and the Gutenberg Bible.

We were admired the Thomas Jefferson Library.

Copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey, in Greek and English.  (The Iliad is one of Trevor's favorite books ever.)

Jefferson's famous quote, "I cannot live without books." Fourth line down, beginning at the fourth word.

Next time, we'll be better prepared to visit this building. 

We probably saw most of what there was to see, but I'd love to go again. And again. Even if it's just a walk through.  Incredible.

 

We had several hours of daylight but no set in stone plan.  We headed to the National Mall, intending to check out a museum or two (some stay open later).  Baking hot, long walk.  Quick detour at the Native American Museum, where we bought drinks and sat in the shade.


Trevor's feet were bothering him.  He had some major plantar fasciitis last year and was able to resolve most of those issues.  But he was saving his good walking shoes for the following day, and his shoes were killing his feet. 

We wandered through the Native American Museum, but most of the displays were just words, with few artifacts. Holly noted that most of the exhibits were for Central and South American Indians, not local tribes.  Always good to check out a new museum though!

From there, we walked to the Federal Center Metro. Although it was late afternoon, about 5 p.m., we were able to get seats, I think because we got on two stops before all of the National Mall and tourist traffic!  By the time we got off at Rosslyn, I was much more comfortable navigating the trains.  I really wish we'd gotten a picture of the escalator out of the Rosslyn station:  "At 207 feet, one of the world's longest continuous escalators."  Whoa.  I just looked that up!!

Mapped it out later, and we walked at least 4.5 miles that day. I did it in flip flops, probably not the best choice either.

We checked into our hotel and scored a tenth floor room with a balcony view over the river, looking toward DC.  Holly soaked her feet in the tub, and we just hung out for awhile.

At dinner, we first went to Safeway for drinks and snacks.  Arlington is such a neat town, everything is so crowded, and even the Safeway had an underground parking garage!  But it was a tiny, tiny store, and so super expensive, with long lines--so we ditched that and instead went a bit further away to Target.  Shopping at Target was like being home, haha, wide aisles, great selection. And socks, I bought socks that I needed to wear with my new shoes!

Nearby was the Peruvian chicken place the kids chose for dinner.  After circling around four times or more for parking, I realized we were two blocks away from where Trevor had stayed in October. Even since Holly and Trevor were little, it was always a treat to eat food in the hotel room. I don't know why--to relax more? Because when they were little, we'd order pizza in and watch Cartoon Network?  Whatever the case, that was what they preferred, and we ordered half a chicken, extra yuca, and Lomo Saltado to take back to the hotel. 

We watched several episodes of Love It Or List It, not our favorite show, but because we relished watching HGTV after dumping cable at home a year ago.  Haha!  Did not feel the need to get our cable back immediately.

Trev's feet were swollen and painful still on Saturday morning, not a surprise.  He felt terribly guilty and came up with various options, but Holly and I had no problem missing the zoo, knowing he'd do exactly the same for us if the situation was reversed.

The last planned stop was Super H Mart. I'd encouraged Trevor to make a list. We browsed through the amazing produce section, the noodles aisle, and the sauce aisle.  I stopped at several tasting stands.  Trevor opted to eat lunch there, jjajangmyeon noodles and bubble tea.

I felt like the paparazzi spotting a famous actor and catching a photo

We stopped at Chipotle for Holly to eat in the car, and the kids snoozed for half of the way home (or pretended to, I never can be sure!).

Got home in time to eat dinner, and I replicated Chipotle by making sofritos--with the tofu we still have from an earlier H-Mart trip.

Great trip away, so nice to just hang out and do something different, and nice to be home!







 

Sunday in VA

Driving to church, we were amazed to see a dozen and a half turkey vultures lined up on the train tracks.  A closer look showed a deer carcass nearby, with a helium balloon tied to its body.  A buzzard birthday party!!

After church, we drove back by to get these pictures.  There were fewer birds, and Robert caught these in flight--look closely at the right side of the photo; the birds were lifting off.  At the far left edge of the pic is the deer.

The balloon was tied to the poor deer's antler.

It was a "Get Well Soon" balloon.

I'm not too hopeful about that.

Trevor and I went to the mall, where I tried on running shoes for hiking.  He bought a couple of pairs of shorts that happily surprised me by ringing up $13 less than expected.  We bought a new puzzle at B&N.  The current puzzle is too hard, too many sky pieces that seem to fit together but really don't.  My only concern is that the new puzzle is 2000 pieces, not sure how that's going to actually be easier!

Kids had McDonald's for dinner.

Trevor is having a friend over tonight to watch the women's soccer final, U.S. v. Japan.