HENSE Graffiti Church

Visiting the HENSE Graffiti Church has been on several of our bucket lists for awhile and I promised the kids we'd get it done at the beginning of summer so it wouldn't slip again. I knew that it was in SW DC, but I didn't quite realize exactly how close it was to so many of our other favorite city spots. As soon as I figured that out, I knew we could have an awesome first summer field trip. We headed out first thing yesterday morning and were so glad we did.

Keep It Local: Canal Park Spraypark

Man, we love when someone does us an unintentional solid. We spent a hot afternoon yesterday celebrating our release from school for the summer by cooling off in the new spraypark at Canal Park near the SE waterfront. By the time mom dragged us home, dinnertime was beckoning and she was feeling too tired to put together the blog post we wanted from her. But then she felt bad because we plan to take next week off from blogging and spend some QT together before we summer camp starts, SO she logged on. Boom. One of our most favorite local blogs, KidFriendly DC, had just posted a fabulous post on the very same Canal Park about which mom planned to blog. Score. 

We present here for you a few snapshots of our afternoon at the park -- we never tore ourselves away from the fountain feature to check out the lawn or the shallow water feature. I thought it was so funny that where we had iceskated just months before, we were now drenching ourselves in cool water. We'll be back! For all real information about the joint, please check out KFDC's post. Thanks KFDC buds!

Keep It Local: Canal Park Ice Rink

We woke up to some chilly temps last weekend (then it was mid-60's this week?!) and decided to check out the new Canal Park Ice Rink down in SE. As luck would have it (for us, probably not them), our Uncle Tim and Aunt Erin were visiting us and happily (begrudgingly) agreed to come with us -- mom was sure it would take all four adults to take the two of us ice skating, given that none of the adults had ice skated in about 27 years. It was chilly and there was a lot of slipping, sliding, terror gripping and whining going on (and that was just daddy), but I made it around the rink 3 times and Kane did twice. Mom and dad even got in a little couples skate. For our first ice skating experience, it was pretty good (although neither of us have indicated any desire to return).

Canal Park is small, but it has a nice restaurant/bar and, in the summer, the ice rink area will have fountains for splashing. We're gonna guess this will be just as busy as Yards Park, which is only a few blocks away. After we'd thoroughly exhausted ourselves, we headed over to Georgetown to Serendipity 3 for some of their famous frozen hot chocolate. And after a run through the Georgetown Waterfront, we figured we'd earned ourselves some more sweets and ducked into Baked & Wired for a cupcake. What? Ice skating is a serious workout (especially, as mom rationalized, when you're dragging a grown man, errr .... a toddler, around the rink, too).

The Ice Rink is generally open:
Monday - Friday: 12 pm - 9 pm
Saturday: 10 am - 10 pm
Sunday: 10 am - 7 pm

But check out the extended holiday hours here.  You'll have to pony up a little cash, but it's worth it:
Adult Admission: $8
Children (under 12)/Seniors (55+)/Military Admission: $7
Skate Rental* - $3

*the smallest toddler size skate they have available to rent is an 8, so keep that in mind if your little has really little toes like me. I actually wear a size 6, but the 8 worked out OK for me.

(we know this is a lot of pictures, but there was just so much that HAD to be captured)

i'm ready coach, put me in.

catching a ride with Uncle Tim. i actually did a little "step and skate" myself.

Kane's ice skating experience went mostly like this.

mom is smiling, but innerly flippin' the bird to the show-off skating dog. 'cause just ice skating by itself isn't hard enough.

frozen hot chocolate!

mom eating my head after i refused to share my frozen hot chocolate.

a little game of blind man's bluff/chicken.

me refusing kane's gift of a purple flower after he refused to give it to me for the prior three blocks.

oh yeah, now that's what i'm talking about.