Xmas vacation

Our xmas vacation started on December 20th and stops on January 2nd. James is off school till the 6th.

We have been going out most days to the botanical gardens or the zoo. The weather has been cold but sunny generally. 

Ewan continues to be very interested in trees and in particular trees that have fallen down. So he likes walking around in the woods looking for fallen trees.  He gets very excited when he finds one.

Santa came on Christmas eve and we now have a lot more toys than before.

The boys are happy and are playing together much better than before as Ewan continues to grow up and be more inclined to get along with James.

70 degree December day

The Saturday before Christmas was warm and sunny here: 70 degrees!  I took the boys to the botanical gardens.  Ewan got to see a lot of trees that had fallen into the lake.  James and I threw mulch at sunning turtles on logs. I climbed far out on a fallen tree trunk above the water to see if the last turtle would jump.  He let me get within a few feet before jumping.

Ewan and Nibbles

Ewan talking to Nibbles about food.

The zoo

We went to the zoo.  The boys ran around. We rode on the zoo train.  Then it was time to go home.

Ewan at Johns Hopkins

Ewan, Heather and I came to the epilepsy monitoring unit at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore on Monday. They hooked him up to the eeg machine to watch the seizures.  The seizures weren't showing up well,  so they reduced one of the medicines and this resulted in clearer seizures.  The plan is to add another medication and for us to come up here again in January for a week to start the ketogenic diet.  Ewan was very well behaved and tolerated the electrodes.

Yorktown

James and I went to Yorktown and Jamestown.  At Yorktown James got to take the gunpowder to the cannon before they fired it. When they fired it was VERY loud!
Then we ran across the battlefields at Yorktown.  There are many cannon and trenches there.
Finally we went to the Jamestown settlement.  We went on 2 ships replicas of those in which the original settlers crossed the ocean.

Flashpig and tomato soup

Yesterday we went to the pet store and bought a new Guinea pig.  James named him Flash. He is a baby. We had to introduce him to Nibbles.  Nibbles made a lot of squeaks,  growls, and barks, but after an hour or so they were both snuggled up together in their pig house. Ewan was pretending to be the new pig.  He lay on the floor and squealed,  "Look at me I'm black Nibbles!"

We ate tomato soup shirtless for lunch today. It was good. It went in Ewans ears.

Happy Birthday Ewan!

Happy birthday Ewan!

Pirates ahoy

We all dressed up as pirates today and went to the pirate festival in Newport News.  The festival organizers were trying to beat the world record for the most number of people dressed as pirates. The record stands at 14000 pirates.  We walked for a long time to get from the car to the festival.  It was hot and there were pirates EVERYWHERE.  We ate some food at the festival then walked back to the car.

Autumn blooms

Autumn is come and the dahlias are blooming. Our tomatoes which we grew from seed are producing pounds of fruit. We are still getting cucumbers and egg plant. Tonight I am going to make a sauce from the tomatoes and eat it with pasta.