The Suisse Family Robinson

We traveled to Washington D.C. in early August with the Robinson grandparents and family to attend the temple with Reed's sister, Ruth, who was receiving her endowments for the first time.  We decided to stay in the city so we could do touristy stuff and hang out with cousins.  It was our first time riding the Metro and neither Reed nor I had visited the Smithsonians in years!  We hit 3 of them in one day- American History, Natural History, and Air & Space.

Thanks to Grandma Piano, all 5 girls had matching glittery shirts and shorts for the trip.  Mariella is not pictured because before we left the hotel she choked and threw up all over hers.  Bummer.
Let me tell you, we were stopped soooooo many times so that people (mostly Asian) could take pictures of our quadruplets or of Mariella, probably because of her red hair.  One time I was standing at a counter waiting for some information and turned around to find several young Chinese women crouched down taking pictures with Mariella.  While everyone was watching the butterflies at the Natural History museum, Reed counted 8 cameras taking pictures of the girls.  We stopped trying to explain that the girls weren't quadruplets or even twins :)  I joked that we should have just set up a both and charged everyone a dime.  We would have been rich.  

Reed turned 30 last week and he had asked for no presents and just a small party.  I acquiesced to one of those requests and it wasn't the party.  I figured reaching such a milestone deserved a medium-sized party so we invited family and close friends to a cook-out at Highbanks Park.  It turned out to be a beautiful evening and the food was delicious.  We had specialty brats and sausages, grilled zucchini and portabello mushrooms, pasta and potato salad, watermelon, and for dessert 30 pieces of chocolate covered bacon.  Delicious.  We had tried chocolate covered bacon at the fair and loved it so I looked up a recipe and it was mucho easy.  I had a couple different toppings- almonds, pecans, brown sugar, and coconut.  My favorite were the pecans!

Happy Birthday, Reed!