| Christmas in Alexandria 2024 | |
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Slide show option — just for looking at the pictures. | |
| Robert's finals were a little earlier this year so we had a few extra days to visit. The first order of business was to pick up a tree and carry it home. Always fun to decline the help with tying it on the car saying, "We'll just carry it home." |
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The weather for this visit has been variable. A fire felt really nice and cozy (and a nice change for Robert since he's without a fireplace in his apartment). Second order of business, Robert made us a shepherd's pie to celebrate Sarah starting her new part-time job with the Library of Congress. Notice how he added the LOC building's outline to the pie! It was great celebratory dinner. |
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Sarah had a happy hour with coworkers from HUD scheduled and Robert and David took advantage of that evening to head back to Zento for sushi. (Sarah ended up staying home not feeling well — sushi would not have helped.) This was a reprisal of a dinner for Robert's first regular use of chopsticks. As noted on the blog, the order has gotten more expansive. Before dinner, Robert connected with the local Magic: The Gathering club and had a great time meeting new folks and enjoying playing in Alexandria (it's something he's picked up in Seattle). With a possible government shutdown looming (the week of starting her new job), Sarah took us to visit her new office. The Library of Congress is really a very cool space (David expects more opportunities for photos later). We spent a fair amount of time touring the exhibits (and are plotting a visit to the map room at a future date). Sarah wins for coolest family office of all time. |
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We played several games with Robert: Scrabble, Catan, Ticket to Ride and Dominion. While there were different winners for each game, Robert may have won most of them. Robert had heard the family story about having his shoes duct-taped on during a Metro ride into DC. But we couldn't find photographic evidence on the blog. Sarah pulled out the photo album with that page describing how much he enjoyed taking his shoes off. |
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Sarah found us a new pool hall for our Christmas Eve game to honor Harry. It turned out to be more perfect than anyone expected: most of the tables were for Snooker rather than Billiards. We were impressed to watch the club players. After that fun afternoon, we headed back home to get to bed so Santa could finish adding presents under the tree. New this year, Robert made deserts for Sarah and David Christmas eve so there was a section of fridge blocked off. On Christmas day, Sarah found chocolate mousse and David found key lime pie :) |
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| As is traditionally the case, Panzer kept on eye on things until it was time to check out the stockings before moving on to the presents under the tree. |
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| If there was theme, it was clothes. We all got a variety of sports team wear along with Legos (of course), a cool label printer for Robert, a new chef's knife for Sarah, music for David and then the big reveal of Robert's Silver Line pillow. Clearly, it was an exhausting morning. |
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After the requisite naps, we enjoyed a fantastic Christmas dinner with Lee Hubbard and family in Springfield. The next day, we renewed our membership in the National Building Museum. Robert was interested in their Brutalist exhibit. And, of course, he took advantage of the opportunity to reprise his bridge building in the Lego room. |
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| On the 29th, we drove up to the Baltimore Aquarium; always a fun visit and this time we compared it to our Thanksgiving trip to Seattle's Aquarium and the new wing just added there. |
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We made it home in time to watch the Sunday Night Football game: The Commanders (doing surprisingly well this year) hosting the Atlanta Falcons (who picked up former UW Husky Michael Penix as quarterback). We were cheering on both Michael and the Commanders — it was a great game! (And great to see the Commanders continue winning.) We enjoyed both early New Year's Eve with Will's family and then watching Alexandria's fireworks at midnight. |
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And we rounded out Robert's visit by going to see a Capitols game. While they lost by one in a shootout, we did see Alex Ovechkin score his 871st career goal. Getting very close to the all time career record. Sadly, the next day, we rode to the airport with Robert to see him off, back to Seattle. We're already looking forward to our next (as yet unplanned) visit. |
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Vacation notes:
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