Sensational Saturday!

Really, I couldn't have asked for a better day. Slept late this morning, then honored Rachel's pleading request last night: "Mommy, when you get up tomorrow, can you play with me?" We played one round of a board games she has that involves looking for treasure and getting to a castle, and she beat me handily. Drew had set up breakfast outside, and I had the most amazing cherry and almond scone, a find from last Saturday's farmer's market (finally found something food-related that is better here than in PDX -- scones!). Drew took Rachel to her swim lesson while I weeded for about two hours and prepared one of our planter's boxes for an herb garden.

Afterward, I raced over to the field for Rachel's tee-ball game ("Mommy, can you please, please, PLEASE come to my game today?" she beseeched me this morning, and of course I said yes. Detect a pattern here???) and had a nice time talking to the other parents. Today's game was live pitching for the first time all season, and Rachel had a little trouble connecting with the ball, but otherwise she did pretty well.

We got a last-minute invite from a new friend of mine, Donna, whose cartoon "Reply All" is syndicated by The Washington Post, to go to dinner with her and her nieces, who are 10 and 8. So we drove into Tenleytown, the area by American University, and played in a cool playground for a while and walked to dinner. On the way we passed Sidwell Friends (Obamas kids go to school there) and the house where the wife of The Post's former owner lived. I love stumbling on history accidentally -- a big benefit of living out here, where history feels closer to the present day than it does out West.

We went to a peri-peri chicken place and Rachel immediately bonded with Donna's nieces, Eva and Maddie. Maddie, the oldest, watched out for Rachel and by the end of the night they were a very tight threesome. We're going to try to get together again soon, maybe for a picnic and concert at the Sculpture Garden or the Kennedy Center (concerts there on Friday nights, I hear) and at the National Cathedral, where you can hear the bells ring while you eat on the grounds. So happy we live in a place with so many things to do!!!