Cherry Blossoms

It's Cherry Blossom season here in DC again. I don't like much about the East, at least not compared to the West, but I will say that the springs here are beautiful. The freeways are spotted with random daffodil's, most of the trees are blooming with pinks, whites, and purples, and everything else is green. As a family we look forward to the Cherry Blossoms every year. Not only are they beautiful, but they symbolize the ushering in of spring. We take the opportunity every spring to go in and see the blossoms and try to get a good picture of the kids. Normally the cherry blossoms are in bloom over General Conference and we take a stroll through them between conference sessions, but this year, probably due to the mild winter we had, the trees bloomed early. So we planned our trip for Tuesday April 1st.

Tuesday was a wonderful spring day. The temperature was in the low 70's, the sun was shinning, the blossoms were in full bloom, and the kids were all in a good mood. After fighting traffic we managed to find a fairly good parking space and we headed off to get pictures near the blossoms. As we were strolling through, Kenny got the camera out to take a picture of the kids only to discover I had left the battery in the charger at home. I hate it when I do that. Needless to say, we didn't get any pictures taken, but the kids enjoyed the warm outing running among the trees.

Because of our failure for pictures we decided to try again the next day. The weather was cooler, but we only had one more chance because there was a storm coming in and there was a good possibility the wind would blow the blossoms off the trees. I got Sarah Kate out of school a half an hour early in order to miss the traffic, we planned a picnic, and remembered the camera battery. Though it was cooler, our second trip was a huge success.

Here's what we did:

We climbed tree's, many tree's in fact, and even hugged them.

Sarah Kate, our super brave girl, was outshined by Ben and couldn't take him climbing the tree and her not. She worked really hard and managed to get up it, but not without some fake tears.

Hannah has no fear and loved being big like Ben and Sarah.

We visited the Jefferson Monument.



We had a picnic dinner on the grass and Gracie enjoyed eating her pacifier.

Daddy took charge of all of the kids (yes, Gracie is in the back of the stroller, you just can't see her.)


The kids enjoyed looking at the 'Ocean'. Ok, it's really the Tidal Basin, but Ben insisted on calling it the Ocean no matter how many times we told him otherwise.

We practiced different areas for pictures. I think the one we decided on was the best, but that's just me.