I saw the breast specialist yesterday to see what she wanted to do about this blessing of a cyst (yes, the cyst is a blessing because it is NOT a tumor  ).  Being a surgeon, among other things, I figured she was going to suggest an afternoon of slice-and-dice sometime next month.

Not so! 

She said that it would likely go away once Maria was weaned.  If it didn't bother me, I can nurse Maria for as long as I want and not have to worry about about it.  If the cyst gets larger, however, she'd like me to come back in and she'll drain it in the office.  No surgery necessary.  To say I was pleased would be an understatement.

Also, they gave me a tube of lip gloss that had the office info printed on the side of the tube instead of a business card.  It was really cute!

On the tail of such a good news morning, I spent all afternoon cooking dinner for the next few days.  The apartment suffered greatly in the cleanliness department, but since I don't have to worry about making dinner for the next few days I can focus all my energy toward cleaning.

John and I, in the spirit of fellowship with our Byzantine hosts, have decided to honor the Eastern Rite's pre-Christmas fast.  This means we are vegan until Christmas (don't worry, the kids aren't observing in the least).  Our priest explained that I was mistaken and fish is NOT allowed, but spineless creatures ARE allowed.  We can't have fish, but we can have shrimp and clams and things like that. 

With that in mind, we are planning on a lobster-centric Thanksgiving.  I'm bummed about missing out on turkey, which has to be my all-time favorite, but I also like the occasional break from tradition.  Since we can't use butter on the lobster, we're already planning on trying out some different finishing oils.  I am still doing my homework on those.

The real head-scratcher for me is dessert.  I'm not brave enough to try for pies or tarts without butter in the crusts. 

Any ideas? 

I promised pictures!

First we went to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.


It was filled with amazing mosaics.


(That's the Byzantine Chapel.)



(The Virgin and the serpent, which was just awesome.)



Our Lady of Chestahova


The Blessed Sacrament Chapel.


The Miraculous Medal.


This is Our Lady of La Vang.  I have never seen Our Lady portrayed with Asian features and I thought it was really neat.  I am going to do more research on her because I had never heard of her before this.

There were some great statues of saints and a great one of Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, but my camera had already started to die at this point, so I wanted to conserve what I had left for the Smithsonian.

Then we went to the mall by the Capitol where we hit the Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum.
 
There were plenty of locals walking their dogs and offering their time to take pictures of tourists.  It was really cute to see.  This particular picture was taken by a middle aged man who was great about getting the kids to look at the camera.

The Air and Space Museum:


I lost Joseph here for about ten seconds while John was in the gift shop.  It was the most terrifying ten seconds for both Joseph and myself.  He was a sobbing wreck when I found him (a mere 20 feet away).  I waited until we got to the car to sniffle and huff.

Here we are at the Natural History Museum.  The kids loved it, even though they were pretty tired by this point.  When we hit the ocean section, Thomas' eyes were as big as dinner plates and he had this dopey grin as though we entered his own personal heaven on earth.

Random sculpture that I didn't think was a total waste of space (it reminded me of winter):

The sculpture gardens were a laugh riot.  I bet every last one of those artists giggled all the way to the bank.  I'm not trying to sound like an ignoramus when it comes to art, but impressionism and abstract art (in general) just annoy me. 

The Capitol building:


"Freedom," the statue on top of the dome:


Bl. Junipero Serra, in the hall with the statues of other past statesmen and diplomats:

The Washington Monument.  With this, my camera died.

We drove past the White House.  I had never seen so many cops in all my life.

Relaxing in the hotel before we took off for the National Zoo.  I was smart enough to bring my camera charger.

Yep, Joe is digging for gold...

The National Zoo.  I took a lot of pictures of various animals, but I didn't feel like uploading them all here.  I don't think they had much of anything that you can't see at other zoos.  Well, they had pandas, but we couldn't see them.