Visiting with New and Old Friends

We had another busy but very fun weekend. My friend Martha from my preemie message board was in town visiting from South Carolina. We've been chatting for over a year now and she is even more sweet IRL! Martha's daughter Campbell (love that name!) was born 13 weeks early - a true miracle. She is an adorable and happy little girl and it was great to meet her and see her and Marino together!

On Friday night, Martha and one of our other fellow preemie mom friends, Megan, went out for dinner and drinks (no babies! Can you believe it?!). It was great to have uninterrupted conversation with these ladies!

On Saturday, Martha, Campbell, her husband Robbie, Martha's sister and her family and our friend Laura and her family met up with Evan, Marino and I and all went to the National Zoo. We were just there in July, but we actually saw and did a lot of things we didn't see the last time we were there. It was amazing how much Marino had changed since the last time we were there - he was doing great walking around!

Here's a picture of the mamas and our babies at the zoo: L to R: Martha, Campbell, Laura, Marino and I with Evan and Cameron in front.

Cameron and his daddy checking out the elephants
Marino and Daddy looking at the tamarinds. He was really interested and excited about the tamarinds!
Marino and Campbell sitting on a tomato
The kids played in the prairie dog tunnels. Here's Campbell making her way past Marino (who wanted to just hang out in the middle of the tunnel).
And Marino crawling through with Cambell close behind.
Checking out the big cow
Trying to milk a faux cow...
All the babies! Yes, we got them all to sit still for a minute. Don't ask me why Marino looks so disturbed in this picture - he's normally such a ham!

L to R: Marino, Cameron, Campbell and Evan

Marino crawling through a tunnel at the Pizza Garden, which is this very cool toddler playground at the zoo, with huge soft plastic pieces of different pizza ingredients. I missed this the last time we went (Sonia, we have to check it out next year!!)
I've never done this before at the zoo (I guess it's only one hour a day), but we got a chance to pet some animals in the kid's zoo (African goats in this case).

Here's Marino making Campbell's Daddy Robbie's day, by giving him a sweet snuggle.

So, in case you've missed it, it's football season! Yeah, it means nothing to me, either, except that there is lots of yelling going on in my basement on Sundays and Mondays. But, Evan really loves football. As you can see below, Marino has been indoctrinated as a Redskins fan. As further proof of this, Evan taught Marino to point at his heart when you ask him "Where are the Redskins?" It's very adorable!

On Sunday, I got a chance to visit with an old friend/suitemate from college, Jess. She and her fiance live in NOVA now (which I learned via Facebook) so Sunday we all went to lunch. It was so great to see her and I really didn't feel like we'd gone 7 years without seeing each other! Her fiance, Anthony, is a really great person and it was really clear how much he loves her (always nice to see). Here's a picture of Jess and I with Marino - he was an angel at lunch (aside from making the biggest mess ever).

We had the worst weather here last week, so we took advantage of a beautiful day and went for a walk (Marino, Max and I that is - Evan was not going for a walk during the Redskins game!!). Can you tell Marino was enjoying himself?

I actually think Max enjoys walks the most, though. Being outside and blankets are essentially his reasons for living.