Cherry Blossom Beauty

As promised, the pictures featured in this post were taken in DC during the Cherry Blossom Festival, which we thought we missed by a week. When we arrived and found ourselves in traffic and searching for a parking spot anywhere, we realized that the Festival was still in full throttle!


Picking and sniffing the Cherry blossoms.

We parked on the side of the Potomac River and walked a little over a mile to get to the main attraction: the tidal basin. Guards dot the landscape at the basin to prevent people from picking, knocking, or shaking the blossoms from the trees. In these photos we're legal since we aren't at the basin yet.


Kaley's turn ... everything is done in "turns" these days




Our little Tom boy playing with "Pooh sticks."


Drew requested that I get the yacht in his photo. He's such a back-seat photographer!



I spy with my little eye someone in red behind the Willow branches


After discovering the Weeping Willow Trees, Emma would have been happy enough simply to spend the day along the Potomac River. She would not have missed seeing the blossoms along the basin, not one bit.


"Come on Kaley, let's go exploring."


I love these back-side views of the girls. I can just imagine what their little minds are thinking about when they stand together enjoying nature.


More fun along the way to our destination. You can see why our time in traffic and patience for parking would have been worth it even if we never got to the tidal basin. It was a beautiful day.



The view along the tidal basin.


The trees along and throughout the FDR Memorial


The FDR Memorial took on a different attitude this trip especially when reading FDR's quote (inscribed on a wall) about war not accomplishing peace when one man or one nation goes at it alone.


Of interest: Japan donated these trees to our nation's capitol after WW2 as a gesture of good will.


The Washington monument in the background. We still have yet to go inside and climb to the top. It's always closed when we're in DC, either for security reasons or strong wind gusts.


The Jefferson Memorial at a distance. Some of you may recognize it. We posed in this same spot for our wedding-invitation photo.


TJ Memorial framed by Cherry blossoms a la Drew's artistic abilities.



The Jefferson Memorial up close but not so personal as to include the image of a guy and girl sucking face in a gross display of PDA.

Plum tuckered out!

It is perhaps easier to see in this picture that both girls literally fell asleep with their hands inside their popcorn bags. They were that tired. Their tiny little legs (maybe E's aren't quite so tiny) walked about a mile and a half just to get to the tidal basin where most of the blossoms were (in such a concentrated area).

Both Drew and I wish we had a professional camera. Our digital just doesn't do these blossoms justice.

This was the view as we drove away in our car.

A good time was had by all.