Local time, 8 am.

For the past few days, Alex has been back on a normal sleeping schedule - sleeping through the night and wanting to wake up to feed at 7 or later in the morning. Which is great, in terms of getting sleep, but getting up in the early morning was really good for my email and my blog. But well, something has to be sacrificed! Anyway, we've had quite a busy week so far. Monday, we went into downtown DC to go to the Air and Space Museum, which was something that Sarah wanted to do. They had fun with that, looking at old planes and rockets and whatnot, and seeing the film To Fly, which I remember from when I was a little kid (and which is still impressive, frankly). After that, we wandered about a bit, and it started to pour rain, so we ducked into the Hirschorn (modern art) - they had a great time with that, particularly with an installation piece that dropped pieces of paper from the ceiling. Should have guessed that modern art might appeal to kids, as it's kind of strange...

Tuesday we went to a local (huge) mall called Arundel Mills, which was built about 3 years ago. It's one of those really really big ones, half a mile from end to end, and it's built in a loop, so one circuit is a mile around - good for mall walking. And it has a big cinema whaddya callit - multiplex? - anyway, 24 screens or something silly like that. Geoff took the kids to see Spy Kids 3D while Mom and I walked around looking at kids clothing sales. Lots of 70 per cent off on really cute stuff. And lots of exercise, with a mall that big... We were really tired after that, perhaps not surprisingly.

So on Wednesday, yesterday, we just mostly hung around locally. We did meet up with my friend Cathi, who lives in Ireland, and who was due to be in the US at the same time as me (her mother lives near mine). Unfortunately, her husband's father, who has been very ill for a while now, has taken a turn for the worse and looks like he won't live much longer, so she's cutting her trip short to return home and be with Dave. At least we got to see her briefly before she went. Another friend from college came over in the evening for a barbecue - she is also married to an Englishman, though they live here, obviously - and they have two little kids. Their daughter Tibby will be 4 tomorrow (so basically Olivia's age) and they have a little boy born in April (not so little, actually, he's almost as big as Alex).

Today the plan is to go with Andy (my stepfather, more or less) to a water park called Splash Down. I'm sure the kids (mostly the adult male ones!) will really enjoy it. Actually, I'm sure we all will. I haven't been to a water park in years, though there is a swimming pool with slides and stuff that we go to when we're in Ireland. The weather is supposed to be hot, so I'm sure we'll welcome the water.