I Yearn For My Wife

Sure is nice to sleep in all the way to 6:37 on a Saturday. RYAN. When you read this in seventeen years.

Loaded up the van to take a stroll around Leesylvania State Park, some lovely grounds right on the river with picnic benches under trees, small beaches to watch the blue herons, and a turtle n' bullfrog pond where a swimming pool used to be and no one bothered to clean.

No, no. They reptiled the area on purpose.

Ryan had fun chasing Grandpa's shadow, and Erin got to sit in a swing for the first time, precariously balanced against her grandmother. But you couldn't have asked for nicer weather. All weekend, actually. Mid-70s and sunny skies, not too breezy. Picture perfect.

After a Subway(TM) lunch on the back porch, with Erin already asleep in the car seat up in her room, we got Ryan and Ainsley and Grandpa and Mimaa and all the dogs down for a nap while I flittered about with last-minute preps. Took off about ten minutes late, then hit nasty traffic up to DC, but I wasn't fretting too much -- Ainsley didn't know we were going to a movie and dinner, and we could have swapped the order if need be, but I figured missing all the commercials and previews (or even the first few minutes of the film) wouldn't be a tragedy. As it was, the movie had started, though we were able to get into the swing of things fairly quickly over the happy crunching of our popcorn and milk duds (we were a tad giddy, going to a flick together for the first time in a year). I had to tell Ainsley after she was finally confused enough to ask, "What are we watching?" that we were ten minutes into "Iron Man." Naturally.

Enjoyed the hell out of the flick, particularly the robot in charge of the fire extinguisher. We then hopped on the Metro to Dupont Circle, forgot which way the sun traditionally sets and headed north instead of south, before finally making our way to the Iron Gate restaurant (naturally), a converted stable in the middle of a bunch of row houses, with a lovely courtyard and grape something that sounds like albacore or alcove but isn't. The roof. The green bits above our heads, there.

Had a lovely mediterraneanish meal, adult conversation and some flan, before getting home to a just-asleep Ryan and a wouldn't-if-you-paid-her Erin. Thankfully, she had been a delight until 8-ish, and Grandad was nice enough to come over to help out and give someone a free set of hands for a spell. Dad had strapped on the ol' Bjorn bag and walked Erin around the cul de sac for nearly an hour, it was reported, Erin happy as a clam and just as mobile. At bedtime, though, poor Mimaa had to endure ninety minutes of carrying or crying, though, when she would not be put down. But after a dose of Ainsley, she slept for four hours. Straight! Doubling her life's output!

ARBOR! Grape Arbor. There.