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Shortly after arriving in Tennessee, we headed to G’Mom and Grampa’s friends’ house to check out their outdoor model trains.

Emmie showed off how much stronger she’s gotten since the last time we saw her.

JJ loves his pockets, though he had a little trouble with these ones. He asked me to help him put his hands in his pockets, and I of course was happy to help.

I had to use an ultra wide-angle lens to get the entire train track in, including the left and right loops and the bridge in between.

Here’s the main loop of the track.

JJ loved to run alongside the train.

JJ stopped running after the train to consult with me on the next photo. He’s got a good eye.

I see the train! It’s coming!

There it is! It’s the train!

Nice work, Mr. Train Engineer. I see you in there.

Here's one of the trains, on the move, after crossing the bridge behind it.

A shared train moment with a father and son.

The girls enjoyed the train, but not as much as JJ. So, after a while, they retired to the swing.

Thanks so much to Mark and Sheryl for all the hard work in creating and maintaining the trains, and for sharing them with us.

Charles’s mom, Carol, who works at the National Zoo, arranged a special behind-the-scenes tour of the Small Mammal House for us. We felt like VIPs getting to go back into the exhibits to meet the animals. Kenton was an excellent tour guide and taught us a lot.

The first animal we got to meet was this Small Madagascar Hedgehog Tenrec named Sansa. She may look like a small hedgehog, but she’s actually a tenrec and not related to a hedgehog at all. It just looks like it due to convergent evolution.

Molly was happy to pet the tenrec, though it would have been a bad idea if it was scared and had its sharp spines up. Leah was not up for petting anything with spines.

The next animal we met was Bonnie the three-banded armadillo. She was just waking up, so still curved into her defensive ball.

Leah did pet Bonnie the armadillo, but she was so quick in doing it that I didn't hit the shutter on my camera fast enough.

Molly of course pet Bonnie the armadillo as well.

After we pet her, Bonnie was allowed to run around a bit. She seemed happy to stretch her legs.

Molly was really enjoying the tour and eager to see what was next.

Next we met Clark the prehensile-tailed porcupine, who was very happy to see us as it meant he got a tasty snack. He started with some corn on the cob.

Here's Clark patiently waiting for his next snack after finishing some papaya.

Here's Jen feeding Clark his favorite treat - bananas. In fact, when he was first born he almost died, but bananas helped save his life. Scroll down to Porcupine Problems there for his story.

We then went to a different section of the small mammal house to meet a couple of naked mole-rats. These are some seriously weird animals, but Leah had no problems getting up close to them (without touching, though).

Naked mole-rats have no fat under their skin and no hair on it, which means their skin is fairly translucent.

Kenton then opened up the exhibit to let us see the three naked mole-rat colonies and ask questions. This meant that everyone could see us as if we were part of the exhibit. I think this was Molly's favorite part, both because she liked seeing the animals and because she liked feeling special.

After our behind-the-scenes tour, we walked around the public parts of the Small Mammal House. Of course, the meerkats were a highlight. Leah and this meerkat had a staring contest.

There was not much more than a big piece of plexiglass separating Leah from this meerkat.

Molly knew that meerkats eat insects, so she decided to try to attract the meerkat by showing off the ladybug on her shirt. It was not fooled.

Leah thought she'd follow Molly's lead and show off the giraffe on her shirt to attract the meerkat. I think she's a bit confused about what might interest a meerkat.

After the Small Mammal House, we wandered most of the zoo. As always, otters are very entertaining. Here's Molly (in the reflection) and Leah off to the side checking out an otter swimming around in front of them.

Molly and Leah are squinting without their glasses, but these otters sure do look cool.

This panda was chowing down on some bamboo.

Not only did Carol get us behind the scenes at the Small Mammal House, she also got us a bunch of tickets to ride the carousel. The girls were very excited to get to ride it twice. If you ever ride it, you can see the cuttlefish is dedicated to Charles's mom and sister.

Checking out the turtles, as we have done before.

Hello, Mr. Lion. We're happy to see you, even if we are exhausted having been at the zoo for more than six hours.

It was by far the longest trip to the zoo we've ever had, but the girls were troopers and did very well. To my surprise, they even stayed awake as we drove home through traffic.

The finale to the day's adventure was eating dinner at Chick-fil-A for the first time since they closed for renovations. The girls have been ready for their favorite restaurant to reopen for some time, and they were happy to see how fancy it is now.

We had not planned to be home for the 4^th, so we had not made plans to see any fireworks. We decided last minute to head to the UMBC parking lot we'd been to 2 years ago to see the Catonsville fireworks. When we arrived, we were surprised to find friends already there.

Leah's got something to say to Maya about her Rapunzel doll.

Keira and Maya were kind enough to share some glow bracelets with other kids, which our girls very much appreciated.

They were about 20 minutes late, but the fireworks did eventually arrive.

The fireworks were pretty amazing. Just look at Leah's face watching them.

Despite being July, it was a bit chilly after dark. But we didn't mind, as we just cuddled up together with our jackets and a blanket.

Here are a few more shots of the fireworks, to give you an idea of what they were like.

Sadly, the fireworks came to an abrupt and early end. We're not sure why. Some said it was due to an injury, others said it was due to wind causing the fireworks to land in the crowd. Regardless, the evening was fun despite the lack of a grand finale.

What's a trip to the beach without some putt putt golf. And this was no basic miniature golf. This was Professor Hacker's Lost Treasure Golf. First stop, the train ride to the first hole.

Here's the other half of the train car as we approach the tunnel.

The second hole started in a castle turret.

Some holes were inside of caves.

They had a hole on a pirate ship, though that was on a different course than the one we did.

It was lots of fun. We had two hole-in-ones: Molly and Jen. Jen and Scott had a serious battle for the lead going the entire time and ended up tying for the best score. If you're in the Outer Banks and looking for some putt putt fun, this place is pretty cool. I'd definitely go back.

We headed to Jockey’s Ridge State Park to check out the huge sand dunes. After a long hike through the sand, we broke out the kites for some fun. Well, Molly got hers out. Leah was tired from the hike and not in the mood.

After a while, Molly was ready for a break and Leah was ready to fly her kite.

Eventually, they started flying at the same time. It really was a fantastic place to fly kites.

After the heat of the sand dunes, it was time to cool off with a popsicle back at the house.

A year after Caroline graduated, she's at it again. This time with a Master's degree in teaching. We made the trip down to St. Mary's to see it happen.

Not only was Caroline graduating, but she was selected as the student speaker at graduation.

She did a great job with her speech. She even threw in a shout out to a couple of little girls. Here it is in its entirety.

Here she is getting her degree from the college President.

She's a happy graduate.

And here she is with her family.

Emmie, JJ, Aunt ‘Chelle, and Uncle J came to visit us, and we decided to check out the Air and Space Museum’s giant Udvar-Hazy Center. It consists of a couple of huge hangars full of things that fly.

One hangar is full of aviation stuff, but the other is even cooler as it’s full of space stuff. The girls are ready to blast off, standing under Space Shuttle Discovery. It’s big.

The space shuttle is very impressive. Seeing the more than 24,000 unique heat shield tiles up close is really cool.

The Space Shuttle Main Engines are huge too. Molly's still ready for blast-off.

Leah was excited to see that the Apollo 11 astronauts landed in the ocean when they returned to Earth, and used these floaties to stay afloat.

There were a lot of aircraft in the aviation hangar.

JJ loved everything, especially the helicopters which he called "copter" over and over again.

Four kids and some helicopters… and a bit of one Mommy for moral support.

Look, Mommy. An airplane!

It's fun to be a little girl, especially when you've got cousins and sisters together.

Sometimes, silly faces are easier to get than smiles.

Molly's favorite exhibit was the SR-71 Blackbird. She liked the fastest plane in the world so much, she even got a toy of it at the gift shop.

The museum was very cool. It's not very interactive like some others, and instead is a traditional "look at all this stuff" kind of museum. But the stuff to look at is really cool stuff.

After a fun day in Philadelphia, we spent the night in a nearby hotel along with four other families. We headed out the next morning to check out the Please Touch Museum. Leah was happy to see some familiar duck-billed faces there.

Molly learned how a lock works.

You can’t miss a chance to play a Big piano with your feet.

Molly’s cranking the lift to load bricks up to Leah.

They have a pretty large grocery store set up that the kids spent much of their time in. Keira spent much of her time playing the role of cashier.

Molly thought this baby (as well as all the others) needed an MRI in the hospital.

Eventually, Leah played the role of cashier while Keira was a customer.

In the space area, they had launch pads for launching foam rockets. Molly’s red rocket has just taken off, though she doesn’t know that since her eyes are shut.

Shooting rockets up toward the target rings is amazing.

Statue of Leahberty

Combining a couple of backhoes and a ball pit made for lots of fun.

No surprise that Leah quickly dressed as a princess when entering the fairytale corner.

Molly’s creating a book in the craft room. Note that the further out you stick your tongue, the harder you concentrate.

Leah takes a brief break from drawing to contemplate her artwork.

Keira’s excited to ride the museum’s carousel.

The girls love the carousel. Jen - not so much. But she took her dramamine so she was able to ride it one time (I had to take her place for the second time around).

It’s a very nice carousel.

We had to tear them away from their book making to ride the carousel with everyone else. To do so, we promised them we’d come back afterward. So, we headed back to the craft room to continue book making until it was time to go.

And thus our great Philadelphia adventure came to an end. We then hopped in the car and braved the traffic of I95 back to Maryland.

Jen and I gave each other dates for Christmas. We already went on Jen’s gift, and now we finally went on mine. First stop - Ford’s Theatre to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

In case you’re trying to place Ford’s Theatre in history, this is where President Lincoln was shot. It’s still an operating theater, in addition to being a museum. You can see the notable box draped in American flags on the right.

No photography during the performance, but here we are outside the theater after the show. This is the first time in a long time that I've shot a selfie.

The show was over at 3:30, and our dinner reservation was at 5:00. We had some time to kill, so we stopped into the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery since it was on the block between the theater and the restaurant. I’m not much of an art person, but it was certainly better than standing outside in the wind. Here’s Jen next to Hibiscus with Plumeria by Georgia O’Keeffe.

We then had dinner at Zaytinya, which was fancy and fantastic. You get several small dishes called mezze (similar to tapas). We had Kolokithokeftede, Falafel, Broccoli Saganaki, Zanzibar Salmon, Beef Keftedes, and Lamb Bahar. For dessert, we had Turkish Delight and Galatopita. Everything was great, but the Lamb Bahar, Falafel, and desserts were our favorites. I’d definitely recommend the place to anyone wanting a fancy dinner in Washington.

Aunt EA and Uncle Scott graciously watched the girls while we were on our date. We figured they’d just hang out at their house, but instead they went adventuring. They went to the National Air and Space Museum, since Molly’s been so interested in space lately. Uncle Scott and Aunt EA were kind enough to buy the girls these Hello Kitty astronauts in the gift shop. Then they played on the National Mall for a bit with their new toys held tight. Then they headed over to Ted’s Bulletin for some dinner and milkshakes before we met them there to head home.

This makes two fancy dates in one week for us, which is pretty crazy. And both were way outside our five mile radius (as defined by Emily). I'm pretty sure we will not be keeping up this pace, but it's nice to get out a bit.

We made the trek down to Montgomery County to the home of the Kentobeans for a gathering with a bunch of friends. The Dunbars, our friends who moved away to Texas a couple years ago, were in town to visit. The party was lots of fun, but I forgot my camera. The girls got these party gifts, which they love. So, I photographed them after we got home.

Molly’s mad scientist and Leah’s robot look evil to me when seen up close.

Thanks to the Kentons for hosting such a fun gathering (and supplying such wonderful parting gifts). It was great to see the Dunbars (and everyone else).