Last Days of This Year's Trip

Heather, James, Morgen, Kolya and Scott at Artomatic

We spent 3 nights enjoying a visit with our son James, daughter-in-law Morgen and our 5 year old grandson Kolya. They live in the Capitol District of Washington DC and spring was in full bloom there. The gardens are small but packed with flowers - some spring bulbs but the roses were in full bloom and every color was represented. 

Kolya is quite an artist and we enjoy working
together.

He loves wearing as little clothes as possible 
around the house.

James and Morgen, surrounded by books. Morgen
works in a bookshop nearby and she and James
are voracious readers.

Our first full day we got to take Kolya to school. It's a half a block away! Then Scott and I went downtown and visited the National Portrait Gallery and have lunch. We picked that museum due to the opening of Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris. But we also enjoyed Struggle for Justice and the portraits of recent Presidents.

On Saturday we took Kolya to the Arboretum - he loves it there. His interests are the buttercups (which he can sit and enjoy, and pick) and the Koi in the pond surrounding the Visitor's Center. . But he also loved the walks through the Azalea Garden - he found lots of little paths between the official trail!

Kolya among the buttercups.

Enjoying the Koi with a new friend. 

Sunday we all went out for Brunch and then to the last day of the Artomatic show. This pop up month long sporadic, peripatetic art festival by local artists takes place in an empty office building. This one had 5 floors packed with artists shows - hundreds. Morgen entered one year and another friend of her and James', who we met there, has also entered several times.  It was a celebratory crowd (there were several bars available, also pop up). Kolya is very creative and loves art. He really enjoyed it (for awhile anyway). 

Enjoying the art!

This is one small section of a single floor. Some were open
totally and others divided into small rooms, each with a 
different artist. 

But all too soon we had to return up to our RV Sunday night. We stopped in to see Paula that evening and again in the morning before hitting the road north and home. We left Maryland at 9 AM and arrived back in Shrewsbury at 4:30 PM - 8.5 hours, not bad and especially since we stopped and had lunch at Panera. It's wonderful to be home and although the trees are still bare, there are lots of daffodils and other early spring flowers. But we only have barely a week here. On Sunday we drive to Boston to babysit our 9 month old grandson Rowan for the week. Our son Sean and son-in-law Will are both away with work commitments.