An Evening at the Iwo Jima Park

Saturday evening we packed our picnic basket and Mia's bike and headed to the park by the Iwo Jima memorial. The tulips by the Netherlands Carillon there are in bloom and there is always a great view on Washington DC at sunset.

When Ji took pictures of the flowers Mia wanted to pose for a few photos as well

After our picnic it was time to get out the Frisbee :

Frying Pan Farm

Mia wanted to make another trip to the Frying Pan Farm which is a park run by the Fairfax county. We went one time last November and she remembered the toy tractors, the animals, the carouse, the playground and the ice cream from the county store.
Since it was a sunny day we though it was a good opportunity to check out the farm on a spring day when there were lots of new baby animals to see

First Mia headed to sit on a toy tractor

 There were chicken

A

Sheep with lambs

A real tractor

Calfs

Baby pigs

 Some good ice cream

And we checked even out a dog show that we found on far end of the park

Hannah's and Maya's visit

On Saturday Hannah, her older sister Maya and her parents came over for dinner. Since Hanna's mother likes German food we had Nürnberger sausages, potato salad, different German beers, Götterspeise and other German goodies.
The girls had their own table

Maya liked the quiche Lorraine with spinach the best.
Everybody liked Mr Mimi who came a a bit later from his  hiding spot

After dinner Erika and Jacob came over and invited everyone to come over for movie night.

Doris' Baby Shower

We drover over to German town for Doris' bay shower which was really big with lots of friends and family.

Mia liked the desert section the most

Mia and Mr. Mimi

Mia likes to spend some quality time with Mr. Mimi on the sofa

Erika's Birthday

This year Erika had a small birthday party in the common room with all her friends from the building and Luca's cousin who is visiting from California

It was a beautiful warm day that almost felt like summer.
Everybody tried some baseball and Mia did prettywell

Something interesting on an iPhone

The highlight was the birthday muffin with seven candles

Story Time

For story time Mia set up all her animals and her baby

No Cherry Blossoms Yet

The day after Easter Erika, Jacob, and Mia headed to the Tidal basin to see the cherry blossoms. Last year on April 1 it was already over but this year it has been so cold that there was nothing to see. The three stil had lots of fun.

First they had to check out how tall everyone is

Then they had fun on the metro riide to downtown Washington DC

There they enjoyed the sights

There was also some impressive wildlife like a lady bug:

Richmond

The weather forecast for the weekend predicted some sunshine and milder temperatures and so we decided to head to Richmond for the weekend.
Our first top was the Maymount park which had a kids farm and a wild animal exhibit.

Mia also discovered a big Magnolia tree that was perfect for climbing

After a trip to a park on the James river in downtown Richmond

we found a nice restaurant which also had a some good desert options

The next morning it was raining again and it turned out that the children museum - one of the main reasons for our trip - was closed. Mia still had a good time in teh science museum next door