A Quick Visit with Todd, Jocelyn and the Kiddos

On Monday, June 6th I had the wonderful opportunity to hang out with my good friend Jocelyn, her husband Todd and their adorable kids Meadow and Beckett. They were in the Washington, DC area to celebrate Jocelyn's Grandma's 90th birthday, so I took a couple days off work and drove down to see them. I drove down Sunday evening and had a great dinner with Sylvie and Miriam and spent the night with them.

On Monday, I met up with Jocelyn and her family at Brookside Park in Maryland. This is a great botanic garden with a butterfly house. We went to the butterfly house first and the kids had a good time. It was especially fun when a butterfly landed on Beckett's head:


It was a warm day, but we enjoyed exploring all the different gardens and just getting to hang out. Here's a cute shot of Meadow:

They also had a kid's garden with little places to go, like this little "gnome's house" that was just Meadow's size:

After enjoying the morning at Brookside, we all went around the corner to another part of the park that had a pavilion for a nice picnic lunch, a carousel and a miniature train! Here's a shot showing that Jocelyn is tall enough to ride alone, but Meadow still has some growing to do!

Todd took the kids on the carousel multiple times. Here his with Meadow in their cool shades:

Meadow also got to ride the train a couple times. She went once with Jocelyn and I and then again with Todd, Beckett and Jocelyn's parents:

It was actually a longer train ride than you might expect and went all through the woods. The kids really loved it.

Here's Todd on the carousel again, this time with Beckett, too. Meadow is clearly loving it!

After a nice afternoon with rides and ice cream and a nap for Beckett, we headed over to Jocelyn's Grandma's apartment for a bit and then headed out to dinner with the whole family. Here's a cute photo of Beckett at dinner:

The restaurant gave Meadow and Beckett balloons and when we got into the parking lot Meadow wanted to let hers go. Here she is watching it fly away. You can see its shadow in the upper right:

And here's Todd and Beckett watching the balloons fly away.

Right as we were getting ready to leave, I realized that I hadn't gotten a photo of Jocelyn, Todd and the kiddos. So here they are next to their rental mini-van. What a cute family!

And then Todd was nice enough to take a cute photo of me and Jocelyn. It's so great to get to hang out with old friends. Jocelyn and I lived in Chicago together, with Jerri and Mark, over a decade ago! Amazing!

Here's the kiddos getting ready to go. What cuties! It was great to finally meet Beckett and to see Meadow again.

It had been way too long since I saw Jocelyn. Hopefully we'll get to see each other again soon!

After saying goodbye to Jocelyn, I headed back to Sylvie and Miriam's and spent the night with them again, and drove home Tuesday, stopping at my parent's house to have lunch with my Dad. It was a awesome way to spend a couple days!