Open House at the Kennedy Center

Today was a full day. In the morning I took Lainey to her very first birthday party. I pretty much spent the whole time feeding her yummy food (guacamole, blueberries, pad thai, bread) so she loved it. Meanwhile Drew took Liz to the Stake Primary Day activity.In the afternoon Alaina and Drew hung out at home while Liz and I went to the Stage and Street Spectacular Open House Arts Festival at the Kennedy Center. The festival was free, very family friendly, and there were TONS of things to see and do. It was awesome. I highly recommend it to anyone in the DC area next fall.

Liz at the "musical instrument petting zoo."

I don't know what this is officially called, but it's made out of colored sand. It makes me sad to think it has been swept up by now.

Liz didn't want to take a break from playing to snap a picture so I had to put her in a semi-headlock.

Local artists' chalk drawings:

Lizzie's chalk drawing: a mermaid with rainbow hair.

We were smitten with the chalk drawings.

We also enjoyed seeing opera, African dancing, a violinist, an aerolist, a puppet show, and a Canadian acrobatic dance troupe that I thought would be a cute, peppy rendition of Noah's ark, but was actually a very modern piece on environmentalism with haunting music.

We didn't get to the box city in time to help build it, but were able to be part of the "earthquake" that flattened boxes. According to Liz this was the best part of the festival.