LILY-ISMS: August 2019 edition

August wasn't as great a month for me to get quotes written down. But please enjoy the ones I did get!

Don't teach Claire out of me!
Don't teach Claire without me.

Brynnie Jack-Jack
Comparing Brynn to Jack Jack on "The Incredibles."

Is this his hay-ber-hood?
neighborhood

We're playing crispy!
Frisbee

Big elephant coming through! A Mommy one!
an elephant on "The Greatest Showman"

Snee snake
talking about a sea snake for some reason

Mommy, you're a strong girl. You have the muscles. Claire! Mommy lifted me up! She's the muscle girl!

Erin: You mean you DON'T want to watch a movie?
Lily: I don't.
Claire: I think she means she does.
Lily: I think I mean I DON'T, Claire.

Can I five yours hand?
Can we high five?

Trumpkin talks to Striped Kitty when I leave. Because they're real kitties.

Erin: You smell good, Lily. Why do you smell good?
Lily: Because I have sauce on me.

I want Mommy and Brynnie to play with me for all the days of my life.

Erin: Where's Trumpkin?
Lily: She's with my GUYS.

Watching Lightening McQueen on "Cars"
My boyfriend is in DANGER!

Wants to go to children's church but is too young
Claire needs a sister with her! I'll be the sister! I'll go with her.

While I'm hiding in my bathroom
Mommy, I think you're lonely in there. You need some children with you.

Erin: Put your jammies away, ok?
Lily: Yes, ma'am.
Erin: Thanks!
Lily: I'm ADORABLE to you.

My hair is disobeying.

Around here lately: August 2019 edition

Given that Brad and I were traveling in the middle of August, I got far less of Claire's commentary recorded for August. Such a bummer...

Brad: That just makes me warm and fuzzy on the inside.
Claire: You are not furry on the inside!

Erin: Where do kangaroos live?
Claire: Um...Texas?

Lily, you look like a beautiful young lady!

My arms hurt because they're sleeping.
Fell asleep

Claire (to Erin): You're the second-best pancake maker.
Erin: Ugh, I'm not even that good.
Claire: It's ok. You're in training!

I saw a picture of a sloth! I think it was a three-toed.

Claire: I missed you, so I looked at a picture of you.
Erin: What were we doing in the picture?
Claire: You were being in a picture.

Claire: Brynnie found my water bottle!
Erin: How come you couldn't find it and she could?
Claire: She just has an exploring brain.

I like being sisters. Otherwise, I would be lonely. I'm so glad I have a Brynnie sister and a Lily sister.

Muh-rote : remote

Boswells on the move. For a little while.

I started this blog post MONTHS ago. Anybody reading this probably knows us well enough in real life to know the details of our life right now. But, for the sake of continuity, I'm going to write this post anyway.

Brad was awarded a very prestigious research fellowship for this fall semester. He is currently a junior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, a research library in Georgetown. Dumbarton is a research center for scholars specializing in Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, and Garden Landscape Studies. You can peruse the website here. There's also some helpful wiki info here.

When Brad applied for this fellowship, I was not terribly excited about it. It seemed like it would be a lot of work (on my end), which sounds snotty, I know. And when he got it, I was proud of him...but also overwhelmed with the daunting task of moving for four months (2-3 seasons, 2 family/friend weddings, Halloween, Thanksgiving, all of Advent, homeschooling supplies, 2 sizes of clothes for the girls...). I was 60% interested in what living in DC could offer 40% bummed at what the move would entail.

So, when I arrived home from Europe, I immediately set to work packing up for our move (thankfully, my parents stayed for several days to watch the girls so that I could be as efficient as possible). Not gonna lie: packing for DC was a WHOLE THING. Did not enjoy.

Side note: It was extremely helpful for me to chat with Brad's colleagues in Oxford. I knew that the fellowship was an honor, but it wasn't until I chatted with other scholars in Brad's field that I started understanding how impressive it really is. I'm very grateful for that perspective.

We moved up to the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington DC on September 6 and will be here until *right* before Christmas. I'll go ahead and give a spoiler alert: after the stress and hassle of the actual move, I LOVE our life in DC. It's been delightful.

I'm going to have to play major catch-up to cover all of the things we've been able to do since we've been here. We've done a lot of cool things, and we still have two months to go! I'm already sad thinking about moving back. How crazy is that?

I hope you enjoy following along with our DC adventures. We're certainly enjoying having them.

While the parents are away, the girls will play!

Our really wonderful parents enabled our Europe trip by taking on the biggest task of all: childcare. We have three very exuberant children, so taking them for days at a time is not for the faint of heart. They are delightful and buckets of fun, but they are a lot of work.  This is not even the first time our parents have taken them for such a long stretch, either. They are truly the best.

First up: 5 days in Tennessee with Gran and Grandpa!

Favorite meals

Treats

Pool time!

Gran and Grandpa set up the tent and had a backyard camp out for our never-been-camping girls!

You just cannot beat s'mores.

Special breakfasts

Slip-n-sliding

ALL THE TOY STORY FUN

They were feeling it.

Splash park

Matching dresses

At the end of those five days, Gran and Grandpa drove the girls back home to Durham and picked up my parents from the airport, handing over the metaphorical keys. My parents stayed with the girls at our house until I got home and for the remainder of the week (so that I could get over jet lag and get busy packing for our move to DC). 

Costco hot dogs

Living the good life

Playing at the outlets

At our beloved museum

The girls had a blast! And our parents were such sports. We're so grateful. Hopefully, they've all recovered and still love us a few months removed from it. :)

Oxford: a pilgrimage

The final stop of our trip was Oxford. I was thrilled about getting to visit Oxford: The Bodleian! Punting! LEWIS! So much mystique surrounding Oxford, and we got a chance to check it out.

Brad's conference convenes in Oxford every four years, so the last time it was in Oxford was at the end of his first year in the program (he didn't present then). I've told him that I expect him to submit a paper every four years from here on out. It's the only thing that makes sense.

I only had about 48-ish hours to be in Oxford, so I wanted to make the most of my time but also not kill myself pounding the pavement, as that didn't seem very Oxfordian. So I made sure to take pictures like this as we walked from the bus stop to the Air BnB we were sharing with friends:

We got into the train station, took a bus to the nearest stop to our Air BnB, and then walked a couple of blocks. I think these are Hollyhocks?

View from our bedroom window. Quaint (and compact) back gardens.

We got into town late afternoon, so we got some groceries from a nearby Sainsbury's and had an early night. Well, I did. Brad walked into town with a colleague/friend to meet up with some other colleagues/friends for a while. I got into my jammies, ate some chocolate-covered digestive biscuits, and read my book. IT WAS GREAT.

The next morning, we headed out into glorious weather for a day of wandering. Our first stop was to get Brad checked in and pick up his conference stuff. They were given tote bags, and for the rest of the day, it seemed that every third person we passed was carrying said bag. 

We walked through a church yard/grave yard on our way into town. It was a lovely little stroll.

Unlike most of the places we visited in Edinburgh and London, Oxford was much more of a slower pace and looked a bit more residential for much of our walking.

Like this.

Where C.S. Lewis taught as a fellow. Part of my pilgrimage.

Logic Lane. Seems very Oxford-appropriate.

The Bodleian Library

My collection is complete.

After walking around the Bodleian and grounds for a good while, we walked over towards Christ Church College to scope out where Brad's garden party would be that evening.

And here is the building where the great hall of Hogwarts was filmed. The line was incredibly long, so we walked right on past. However, after I had returned home, Brad had something conference-y in there and snapped some pictures for me, because he loves me muchly.

Thanks, Brad! I can't *almost* see McGonagall standing there, ordering first years into place.

The grounds surrounding Christ Church were gorgeous, and I snapped approximately one billion pictures. I narrowed them down a bit for your benefit:

Then we meandered through the streets of Oxford, taking in the sights and killing some time before lunch.

Any The Royal We fans out there?

Boswells are very popular in the United Kingdom.

We made our way to the focus of my Lewis/Inklings pilgrimage: The Eagle and Child (The Bird and Baby). I've read and loved Lewis for years. I love The Lord of the Rings. I've recently come to love Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey novels. It seemed only appropriate that we eat lunch at the Inklings' pub of choice. I wanted to get there early enough to snag a seat in The Rabbit Room, which was their corner of choice, as well. I got us there so early that it wasn't even open yet. Oops. Oh well. GOT MY SEAT, SO THERE.

Tolkein

Lewis

Boswells

"Please do not obstruct this door...Aslan is watching you! You have been warned."

{Map of Narnia}

The food was good, the company (Brad) was excellent, and my reader-writer's heart was very full. So many parts of me have been shaped by Lewis's words, and it was like meeting a friend to sit where he sat and talked-argued-workshopped-imagined with his friends.

From there we walked back to our house so that Brad could change for the garden party and I could work on packing. Some sights as we walked:

Again, for good measure.

After the garden party, I walked back into town to meet up with Brad and some of his fellow Cyril scholars (yes, there is, in fact, a small group of them) at The Bear for supper. Brad and his ilk are a very intelligent, highly-specialized, and international crew. At our table: US, Australia, France, and Germany. I was the only non-scholar, so it was my job to cover for that by being charming and asking to see pictures of grandchildren, learn about summer vacations taken, and generally talking about any non-scholarly thing I could think of. It takes all sorts, y'all.

Brad and Duke colleagues at their garden party. Note: these are not his Cyril colleagues. All of these folks are doing different kinds of projects. They're all terribly smart and ridiculously well-read. And they all speak/read in multiple languages. It's a tad intimidating.

Brad stayed to talk shop with everyone after the food was gone, and I took my leaving, enjoying the walk and taking just a few more pictures:

The next morning, I got up with the sun to begin my trek to London. In true Brassart fashion, I hit a travel snag immediately. They were in the middle of tearing up roads all over Oxford, so the bus routes were interrupted and re-routed often, which is fine if you know where you are and where you're going. Less fine if you're me and don't know either of those things. I asked the bus driver to help me figure out where to get out, but his directions and my understanding of those directions were, apparently, quite different from one another.

The kindest street sweeper saw me looking very confused and took pity on me. I told him where I needed to be, and he loaded me and my luggage into his car and drove me right to the entrance of the bus station. Seriously? What a dear soul. A blessing on his head. I made it onto my bus and all the way to Heathrow...and then directly to Durham without any further incident, thankfully. That direct flight, followed by Global Entry (which is a GAME CHANGER TRUST ME GET IT YOUR LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME), made my travels so smooth and lovely, which is not usually the way I get to tell my travel stories. 

After I returned home, I got a few more pictures from Oxford:

Brad and Duke friends had a meal together here, where Harry Potter cast and crew would often eat.

 And during Brad's presentation, our friend, Jill, posted this on her Instagram stories!

And then sent me the picture without text on it. She's a dear.

To say that I had the BEST time on our UK adventure would hardly do justice to my actual feelings. I'm so grateful for Brad's hard work to be accepted to present, as well as making a way for me to join. And we literally could not have gone without the help of our parents, who gladly and gamely kept our highly exuberant children. It was SUCH a blessing, and we cannot say "thank you" enough. I can't wait to take the girls with us one day! (but I don't plan to do that until well after the last one is out of diapers, so it'll be a minute)