Viva Vienna

Last Saturday, we met our friends the Muraos and attended Viva Vienna, which is Vienna's version of a festival or county fair. As usual, the entire family had a blast, especially CJ.

The vendor and craft booths were not up on Saturday, so we ate lots of fried fair food, and then focused on the rides. Seriously, nearly everything was fried, including the vegetables, the oreos, the fries.

CJ rode nearly everything: the giant slide, the merry go round, the train, the train go round, the whale ride, the swing ride, the wave runner, and the baby roller coaster. Yup, CJ rode on his first roller coaster and he went without mommy.

The hilarious thing is that CJ enjoyed playing with the little rocks in front of the general store as much as he enjoyed the rides. Considering that the rides cost $3 per person, perhaps I should have let him play with the rocks longer.

CJ and I love county fairs. Last year, we went to the Alexandria Waterfront Festival, the Arlington County Fair, and Celebrate Fairfax. I need to map out our summer so that we hit the county fairs, and get to Luray Caverns, Sesame Place, and the Renaissance festival. So much to do!

Shopping in New York

Shoe shopping, lunch, chocolate, wine and hanging out with the girlfriends? I can't think of a better time!

On Saturday, May 17, I got to hang out with some cool women during a bus trip to New York organized by Reston Limousine. It was a long day, but a fun day. We left Tysons Corner at 7am and arrived back ground 11:30pm.

The ride up was awesome. I got to meet some fabulous women, all friends of the amazing Kristina Bouweiri, CEO of Reston Limousine. Many of use are business owners and moms, which made for some fun conversation.

We got dropped off at Canal Street around 11:30. Yes, we were hungry, but we had more important things to do. Our first stop was Shoegasm (yep, that's the name), where I bought a pair of purple ballet flags and a cute pair of black and gold sandals (a little more bling than I'm used to). Next up, Shoefinity, where I bought a pair of lavender Merrill walking shoes. (Did you guess I like purple?)

Next up, handbag shopping. Most of the group ventured into a secret basement shop to hunt for Pradas and Guccis, but I was too claustrophic. I wandered around Canal Street and got a wallet and Sponge Bob watch for my son.

After all that shopping, we were famished. The group split into two. The first group went for an Italian lunch. My group went for Chinese since I never get great Chinese in the DC area. Michelle led us to a great hole in the wall where we had a veritable feast for $25 per person. We had crab, duck, scallops, fish, noodles, beef, and soup. We even had bubble drinks from next door.

It was still early, so we hit some more shops. We hit a couple of sample sales, wandered around the discount department store Century 21 and even got to see Ground Zero. After that, we headed to Soho, where I got an amazing deal on a Cleo and Patek purse and wallet. Seriously, I bought the most beautiful purse I had ever seen and it was 60% off. The store manager said sales are way down and they are forced to discount.

Our day ended at Te Casan shoe store. This has to be the swankiest shoe store I've ever been to. The store carries 7 lines of designer shoes, many of them limited edition. Did you know that Natalie Portman has her own line of vegan shoes? The shoes start at $275 and I had already bought 3 pairs elsewhere, so I was able to resist the temptation.

After Te Casan, we grabbed some hot dogs for the road and headed home. The bus ride was long, but Kristina treated us to a movie (Maid Money, total chick flick), wine and chocolate covered graham crackers. We slept, we chatted, we shared our food, and we passed around the goodies we bought.

I was a waste of space on Sunday because I'm not used to all that activity in one day and I'm definitely not used to being up so late anymore! But boy was it fun! Reston Limousine organizes New York trips once a month. I'll definitely try to join another trip in the Fall. Fun times!

National Train Day

Last Saturday, May 10 was National Train Day. Since CJ LOVES trains, we headed out to Union Station to join in the celebration.

All of Union Station is a wonderland for CJ. First of all, the parking lot has a huge, glass wall that give you a view of the incoming trains - wow, endless fun to count the waiting trains and watch them come in. Next, CJ loves escalators. Since parking was tight that day, we had to park on the top, outside deck, which meant a half dozen escalator rides to the ground floor. More fun.

We got to the station around 12:30pm, which meant it was time for lunch. We headed to McDonald's and CJ proceeded to wolf down six chicken nuggets, a bag of fries and a bottle of milk. While we do indulge in takeout sausage egg McMuffins on a fairly regular basis (I'm ashamed to admit), this was perhaps CJ's second or third time actually eating inside a McDonald's. He loved it all, especially the Happy Meal toy.

Union Station was rocking for National Train Day. It felt like all Amtrak employees were out that day, staffing the events and information tables, passing out stickers, giving directions, giving away activity books. The main hall had a live band and we heard that President Bush was even scheduled for a visit (we didn't see him).

I was most interested in the train tour, so we waited in line. And waited and waited. God bless CJ, who patiently waited in live for an hour. Thankfully, it was worth the wait. We got to see the inside of:

• a Pullman car from the 1930s, beautifully restored by a local historical society. The sitting room was very elegant and we got to see inside two of the sleeper rooms.
• a regional train.
• an Acela first class train.
• an Acela business class train.
• an Acela dining car.
• a double decker MARC train.
• another Pullman car, this time from the 1940s, with its art deco observation room (you felt like you were on a cruise liner) and sleeper rooms.

CJ was fascinated by the beds and the chairs. He had to peek into every sleeper room and he has to test out the seats on every train. He would say, "let's sit here, mama" so we would sit down, look out the window, watch some people go by, then move on. He was in heaven and it was a real treat for me to see the Pullman cars.

Take me out to the ballgame

Last April 30, CJ and I got to go to the ballgame with our friends, Susan and Mary V. It was so much fun to ride the metro and go to the ballgame with the kids. Not to mention that we got to play a little hooky on a Wednesday afternoon.

Getting to Nationals Stadium by metro is really easy. We got off at Navy Yard and the stadium is a block away; there is a pedestrian path for most of the way. We were lucky that day. The weather was perfect - sunny and 70 degrees, with no humidity in the air. The kids were so excited to be out with their mommies, riding the metro, walking and running around, going to new place, watching some strange game, and eating hot dogs and Cracker Jack. Could life get any better?

So, about the game. The Nationals were playing the Braves. The game itself was pretty unremarkable. Both sides were playing rather poorly. It seemed like three players would go up to bat and then there would be three outs. The game started at 4:30pm; by 6:00pm, we were at the top of the 7th inning. CJ was very happy to sit in his seat, check out the crowd and eat his Cracker Jack. But he had never seen a baseball game in his life, on TV much less in person, so my pointing out the pitcher and the batter did not seem to really register. Oh well, maybe next time.

Because of the kids, we left before the game ended. Yeah, heresy, but for us moms , it wasn't about the game, it was about being out with the kids and enjoying a Spring day. At the bottom of the 8th inning, we headed for the team store to pick up some souvenirs. Alas, they did not have blue Nationals t-shirts for little boys!

Nationals Stadium is not as pretty as Camden Yards, but it's certainly a wonderful stadium. And it's definitely easy to get to if you have easy access to the metro!