Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!  We had a great first Mother's Day here at the Koller house. Caroline got her first non-family friend babysitter on Saturday night and Jack and I went out to dinner. We went to a great restaurant in the Cleveland Park area called Ardeo.  Caroline was great for the babysitter - we put her down when we left and she didn't get up until 5:30 the next morning. We had a fantastic time at the restaurant. It was nice to have a great meal and good conversation out of the house!

But Jack also planned a great Mother's Day itself. I woe up to breakfast and a New York Times in bed. Yummy and fun! Then we went over to church with, if I may say so, Caroline looking particularly cute yesterday.

These pictures are from church. In most of them (including this one to the right) Caroline is looking at some of the people from church she knows well. They were more exciting than the camera!

After a great lunch (outside because it WASN'T RAINING!!) we all went up to the National Arboretum. I am not sure how I had never made it up there, especially given how much I like flowers. But Jack made the excellent suggestion that we head up there, since the azaleas are all in bloom. 

Caroline seemed to enjoy herself just looking around at all of the flowers from her stroller. We walked all over through the area where there are azaleas. Our stroller did great with the "off road" conditions.  She seemed perfectly content to look at all of the brilliant colors around her.

We also went by one of the stranger things in the Arboretum - the big columns set out in the middle of a meadow.  The columns, as you can read here, used to be on the U.S. Capitol. For reasons that still aren't totally clear to us, they are now out in the middle of a meadow at the National Arboretum.

But, as you can see in the picture to the right, it was a beautiful day all around. It was cool (but not cold), sunny and just breezy enough for a kite.  Perfect weather for Mother's Day.

Here are a few more pictures of the azaleas that I took as we walked along!