Happy Thursday and day after America’s birthday! I must say, even though I am taking today and tomorrow off from work (but probably still checking emails periodically), it does seems weird to me that we had a day off yesterday, but we still have 2 more days until the weekend.
Our day began on a fairly relaxing note with Ava and I running a couple of errands – taking our Jeep to the car wash and doing a Target run – while Tommy continued building furniture for Luke’s room.
Later in the early-afternoon, Christina and Aaron made it to our house (they are visiting us from Dallas) and the adults had a couple of hours to chat and catch up while Ava took her nap. I had made an orzo salad for everyone to lunch/snack on, since I knew Christina and Aaron would probably be hungry after their flight from Dallas.
Once Ava was up and we were all dressed and refreshed and Violet walked, we all made our way to the Alexandria Waterfront to take the water taxi to the D.C. Wharf! Taking the water taxi somewhere in or near D.C. has been on our list for awhile and we were glad to finally get it checked off our list. It didn’t disappoint! 
We figured Ava would enjoy being on the water, but she really enjoyed being on the water! Initially she wanted to stay inside the water taxi and look out the window (mainly because she was hot, I think), but once the boat got moving, we all made our way outside to enjoy the breeze, the views, and (surprisingly) how fast the water taxi went. Ava kept exclaiming, “we’re going fast just like Lighting McQueen”! (Tommy has her on a Cars fix right now). She actually got a little annoyed when the water taxi had to slow down as we approached the D.C. Wharf.
Once we were on dry land we were in search of dinner. Instead of taking Christina and Aaron to one of our favorites, Hank’s Oyster Bar (because there was a 2-hour wait), we opted to try a new place on the waterfront, Kirwans. Being an Irish-Pub-restaurant, the food was pretty typical (fish and chips, burgers, an assortment of salads, and steak), we were all pretty satisfied with our meal choices – except poor Aaron. His shrimp cocktail salad was a little on the small side!
After dinner, we sauntered around the wharf for awhile, sitting on a pier looking at the water, swinging for a bit, and getting some ice cream before heading to the Navy Yard to watch the fireworks from my mom’s condo building. (It will always and forever be my mom’s condo building).
The swings on one of the piers were a hot commodity last night, but fortunately a very nice fellow let us swing with him for a bit!
The views from the Velocity condo building’s rooftop are quite amazing. You can literally see the entire skyline of the city and more, so we saw probably 10-15 different smaller fireworks shows before the fireworks on the National Mall began around 9:10pm. Ava was a little apprehensive at first, saying she wanted to watch the fireworks from the condo instead of the roof. (She was afraid the fireworks would be too loud), but I persuaded her to give the rooftop a shot, and once she saw the views of all the fireworks, she never looked back.
She kept exclaiming “how beautiful” the fireworks were and telling me all the colors she saw in the sky. She said “how cool” it all was and was the first one in our small group to notice when the “big fireworks” (the National Mall fireworks began). She also was able to make a couple of friends during the fireworks show with two cute, slightly older girls than her, and get a plateful of food from some folks who had been grilling on the rooftop earlier that night. Oh to be Ava J.
The only photo I took on the rooftop because Ava turned to me and said “mommy take some photos of the fireworks”!
Even though it became a very busy day, I still took time to reflect on what I do love most about my country, my personal blessings, and things that I hope improve and get better. Hopefully you all were able to do the same.
Happy Birthday America!
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