Saturday was the kind of day that exemplifies why we moved here - as opposed to Friday, which found me at the DMV for another 2 hours and after making no progress whatsoever, needing to leave to get work done and having to pay $14 for parking.
But, Saturday is the focus for this post. In the morning, we woke up to sun, spring weather and trees blooming, drove down the hill to Georgetown, pulled into a parking spot for the Embassy of Lichtenstein and dropped Sophie off at the uber-modern Swedish embassy complex right on the banks of the Potomac. She was going to a United Nations Foundation event for one of their initiatives, GirlUp www.girlup.org . GirlUp catalyzes adolescent girls from this country to learn about and support the hardest to reach adolescent girls globally. She spent the day learning about the plight of millions of girls forced to marry in their early teens, girls who aren't allowed to go to school and many other important issues. She came home ignited and full of ideas to help her school's chapter of GirlUp raise funds and awareness for the causes of her global peers.
While Sophie was off at the "House of Sweden", Xavier and I headed to Le Pain Quotidien - a favorite little French bakery/cafe that I first went to in London. We could barely talk to each other beyond the sounds of pure delight as he sipped a belgian hot chocolate and I oogled my cappuccino with a generous heaping of hazelnut spread (organic version of Nutella - yum!). We looked to the day ahead and decided we'd drive to Virginia and check out the 2nd half of the Smithsonian's air & space museum. We'd already gone to the main museum on the mall in DC. Xavier has a report on Charles Lindbergh coming up, so we headed to the huge hangar near Dulles airport where airplanes and space craft - from gliders with barely any structure to the Concorde to the space shuttle Endeavor - are on display close up. I had my own personal guided tour - Xavier loves flight and has soaked up amazing details from reading and studying about it that he was able to point out planes, tell me where they were from and little tidbits about how they were used. It was a lot of fun and a great way for him to gather more information for his report - Wikipedia pales in comparison!
We all returned home exhausted and grateful that we have so many resources right in our own backyard. I'm headed off to Bangladesh this week for site visits of MAMA work. I am very much looking forward to it and will no doubt have stories and photos to share!
Le Pain Quotidien - chocolate bliss
Real astronaut suit from Endeavor
But, Saturday is the focus for this post. In the morning, we woke up to sun, spring weather and trees blooming, drove down the hill to Georgetown, pulled into a parking spot for the Embassy of Lichtenstein and dropped Sophie off at the uber-modern Swedish embassy complex right on the banks of the Potomac. She was going to a United Nations Foundation event for one of their initiatives, GirlUp www.girlup.org . GirlUp catalyzes adolescent girls from this country to learn about and support the hardest to reach adolescent girls globally. She spent the day learning about the plight of millions of girls forced to marry in their early teens, girls who aren't allowed to go to school and many other important issues. She came home ignited and full of ideas to help her school's chapter of GirlUp raise funds and awareness for the causes of her global peers.
While Sophie was off at the "House of Sweden", Xavier and I headed to Le Pain Quotidien - a favorite little French bakery/cafe that I first went to in London. We could barely talk to each other beyond the sounds of pure delight as he sipped a belgian hot chocolate and I oogled my cappuccino with a generous heaping of hazelnut spread (organic version of Nutella - yum!). We looked to the day ahead and decided we'd drive to Virginia and check out the 2nd half of the Smithsonian's air & space museum. We'd already gone to the main museum on the mall in DC. Xavier has a report on Charles Lindbergh coming up, so we headed to the huge hangar near Dulles airport where airplanes and space craft - from gliders with barely any structure to the Concorde to the space shuttle Endeavor - are on display close up. I had my own personal guided tour - Xavier loves flight and has soaked up amazing details from reading and studying about it that he was able to point out planes, tell me where they were from and little tidbits about how they were used. It was a lot of fun and a great way for him to gather more information for his report - Wikipedia pales in comparison!
We all returned home exhausted and grateful that we have so many resources right in our own backyard. I'm headed off to Bangladesh this week for site visits of MAMA work. I am very much looking forward to it and will no doubt have stories and photos to share!
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