Last weekend was the Alexandria Red Cross Waterfront Festival. One of the attractions was the National Guard climbing wall. Eva tried her first climbing wall in March, and she really loves it. She now goes almost every week to SportRock, an indoor climbing gym in Alexandria, and whenever we are at a festival or amusement park with a portable climbing wall she has to go up it a few times. 
Bill asked me to do the writing for him so this post is a joint effort. He took this beautiful picture of Eva holding Lyra yesterday. Lyra doesn't always want Eva to hold her and Eva doesn't often cooperate for posed photos, so this is truly a lucky shot.
Lyra is experimenting with her voice a lot more these days. Her little babbles and giggles are so funny! We need to record them somehow but none of the children, so far, have ever cooperated for the microphone.
Eva put this bear on top of Lyra and she actually seemed to think it was cool. This is how Will and Eva like to hold Lyra, on their laps with her facing them. Of course the bear fell off right after I took this picture, but Lyra is still too young to be upset over that sort of thing.
Eva really gets in Lyra's face sometimes, but she does love her little sister. Lyra is remarkably tolerant of it but we don't expect that to last much longer
We celebrated last night although today is the actual day. Eva wanted a pumpkin pie instead of a cake. In a couple of weeks, she is having a party with a few friends and I will bake a cake for that one.
In over two centuries of US history, citizens have come together in times of crisis to overcome partisanship and act for the good of the nation. The time is long overdue for PATRIOTS in the Republican Party and PATRIOTS in the Democratic Party to join together to expunge the venal and illegitimate tyrant wannabes in the executive branch of our current government.
Eva turns six on June 12th, and she is sooo excited. She really does have a very mature attitude, and is doing great in her many actvities. We celebrated her family birthday today, but she still has a celebration with her friends to look forward to.
Look at this fabulous painting by Sheep Jones! It is now hanging in our living room over our sofa and it looks like it was made to be there. We love it! Sheep has a studio at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Old Town Alexandria.
Here are more pictures from the ballet recital. We were unorganized so Bill had to run up the street for flowers right before the recital. I think Eva's favorite part of the whole thing was getting flowers from Daddy. She is still talking about it.
Eva's first ballet recital was yesterday, and it is amazing how many photos show her with her tongue hanging out. She really did a great job, and we will have more photos up soon, but this one was too funny to wait on.
