Okay, so the second installment of DC pictures and text are living on my hard drive, waiting to be assembled into a coherent narrative . . .

But let me just jump ahead a bit and state that Louise and I pulled in to Ann Arbor late Thursday night. She spent the night, and then on Friday afternoon, entirely spontaneously, Emma and I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which had just opened, and which is a must-see for all die-hard Johnny Depp fans (which Emma is. I am not - but I am a die-hard Emma fan, so it all worked out). I missed my book club meeting Friday evening, choosing instead to pull weeds with my husband . . . I feel bad about that because I really like my book club and I feel like a slacker - but I also felt as if I hadn't been home for, oh, like, six months or so . . . and besides, I had to be home so Em and I could go to the Harry Potter party at the local Borders at midnight . . . (I'm a third of the way through the book. I'm hurrying, because I can't read any reviews or talk to Emma - who finished late Saturday afternoon, natch - until I'm done.)

Then today Em and I went to Lake Orion to hang out with my sister-in-law Cheryl (who's in town to tie up loose ends after her mother's death in the spring). It was a perfect day. We didn't do much - just swam for a while, then made dinner and visited with her brother Gary, then talked . . . Gary took us out in his speedboat, which thrilled Em to no end. And Cheryl showed us pictures of her kids, as well as showing us a wonderful series of shots of my brother . . . and the talk surrounding all of this was about family: stories of Em's cousins, stories of Cheryl's childhood, stories, stories, stories. It was perfect. Emma wanted to go, she was happy to be there, and she listened attentively.

This day, along with other events that have transpired since I got back from DC, have made me realize that we're probably doing a much better job of raising these kids than I usually give us credit for . . . both of them know the value of family, I'm sure of it. Both of them have their hearts in the right places. I could wish for better grades in school from both of them - but as Emil says, if they got good grades, they'd be perfect. There's much more to celebrate than to bemoan, and I can do with as many reminders of that as I can get.

So things are going very well right now, and I'm wonderfully content. Yay!

Tomorrow, I'll post the rest of the DC trip report, along with pictures, I promise . . .