My Favorite Things in DC

During my trip to DC, a lot of people asked me about what my favorite parts of DC were. While I liked lots of things about DC, the vacation house, the air and space museum, the train museum, the zoo, and so on, the best part of Washington, DC is its mass transit system. To get to anywhere, we would take the blue bus to the metro train.

The metro train is absolutely the best thing. First you have to ride down a giant escalator to get to the trains. Then Mommy or Daddy have to put their card in the machine. When the doors open, I zip through as quickly as I can before they close. The trains are the best part. They have colorful seats and stop at many interesting places. Some of the stops are named after shapes like Washington Circle, McPherson Square, and Federal Triangle. A really good part is when you have to change trains. To get to the zoo, we would ride the blue or orange lines to Metro Center. There, we would change trains to the red line to go to the zoo. Two trains and a bus---each way. Wow!

I can't drive 55

We arrived back from Washington, DC, which is the greatest place ever, this past weekend. More on those adventures in the coming days, but for now I want to talk about fast cars and crazy driving.

When we went to DC, I picked out several of my Hot Wheels and Corgi cars to take with me on the trip. I especially like a Range Rover police car that Daddy got me while he was in England. During our time in DC, we spent many nights happily playing "crazy driving." We set up a ramp consisting of various books and then drove the cars over the ramp. Sometimes the cars would make the jump successfully and land on their wheels. More often, however, they would not. Sometimes the result would a a somesaulting car zooming across the room. Other times the car would simply land on its roof and slide along upside down for a ways.

When we got back from DC, Daddy and I went on a "mission" to target to get some Hot Wheels track for even more crazy driving. We got a track with a little battery powered "engine" to speed the cars along. The cars go over a loop, then do a little jump, then go almost sideways on the high-banked turns of the Hot Wheels raceway. We've discovered that some cars are better than others at negotiating this track. One of the best at this track is a fire engine with a long ladder. "Neenah, neenah," the fire engine's siren sounds as it speeds along the track to a fire. Interestingly, a milk tanker truck is also not too bad at this as well.

I love how fast the cars go on the track. They go so fast that they lok like blurs as they whiz around.

Back from Hawaii

We flew back from Maui two nights ago. I had a great time there. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I never wanted to leave. I suggested to Mommy that we stay in Maui for "72 days" and that after Daddy was finished with his work he could join us there. On first seeing Daddy at the airport, I suggested that I liked Hawaii much better than California. Daddy seemed doubtful about this. I think he likes California a lot.

Stockens in San Francisco

My Daddy got to visit his old friends the Stockens, who were on a trip to San Francisco. In the course of that visit, he naturally took a bunch of pictures. Here are the highlights. For those interested in what the some of the Stockens (they have two older boys who didn't join them on their trip) check them out here.

Fourth of July in Danville

I had a lot of fun on the fourth of July. We went and saw a big parade in Danville, Mommy set up a big pool for me to splash around in, and I got to explode some "fireworks"---pop its and party poppers. I especially liked waving around the colored streamers from the popped party poppers. You can find photos of my adventures on the fourth of July here. Pay special attention to two photos of "tick guy"---a person dressed up as a giant tick to remind all of us of the need for bug repellent during the summer season.

A Day Out with Thomas

Last Saturday we all went to Roaring Creek for a ride on Thomas. It was great. I can't believe I actually got to ride and see Thomas the Tank Engine. Some of Thomas' friends were there including Sir Topham Hatt. I go to shake his hand. I think he quickly realized that I'm a "really useful boy." We also got to see and amazingly complex train layout with tunnels and a big ramp going down. I noticed that Toby had brakes going down the big hill, but Henry didn't. Whee, went Henry down the big hill.

I also got a Thomas tatoo on my hand (a temporary one, though I would have liked a permanent one too). I got a picture of James on my other hand from the face painters (I like pictures on my hands, but not on my face!) There was an interesting yallow caboose there and lots of other train stuff.

One thing I didn't like was posing for pictures in front of Thomas. I had an angry scowl in one picture. Mommy bought the best of the lot (since she can never resist buying these pictures, but it really wasn't one of the better shots of the "three family".)

Daddy took a whole bunch of other pictures. You can check out some of the nicest ones here.

Boring aside:
(Daddy wants me to mention that these are lightly edited, so you may want to "enhance" them in various ways on the Shutterfly site before printing. Daddy also wants me to mention that Shutterfly has improved their organization so now all my new Shutterfly photos can be found at my Shutterfly website: aidanspictures.shutterfly.com.)

End of boring aside.

Best of all, I got a Thomas whistle to take home with me. Peep! Peep!

Do You Know the Way to Monterey?

I had a fun time going to Monterey and Carmel two weeks ago with Nainnie, Mommy, and Daddy. I got to see an eel (pictured here) as well as anemones (my favorite), and lots of shaaaaarks! Here are some photos of my adventures there.