Cox Farm

We took the kids to Cox Farm again this year for the Fall Festival.  They enjoyed petting the goats, playing on the huge slides, the corn maze (which they decided to go thru twice), the hay ride and picking out a pumpkin at the end of the day.  Oh and of course they loved the kettle corn too!

 

 

Harry the Fish

Magnus admiring Harry, the fish.

We had promised Magnus that since he was getting a baby sister, instead of a baby brother, that we would get him boy pets... so as the equalize the boy/girl ratio on the house.  He really wanted a dog, but that will have to wait about 5 years, so we settled on a fish.  We went to PetSmart and Magnus picked out a red Betta fish, his favorite color.  Normally don't know the sex of a fish,  so we figured we would be safe with whatever fish Magnus picked and we would just presume it was a boy fish.  However, all the little cups holding the Betta fish were labeled on the libs with either 'Female' or 'Male' Betta Fish.  And what do you know... Magnus' red Betta fish lid said 'Female.'  We decided to keep that our little secret!

Magnus debated between naming the fish Hairy or Fuzzy... he settled on Hairy/Harry.  (And said he wants to name his dog Orange.  Seems like those names should be flipped... Orange for the Fish and Hairy or Fuzzy for the dog. :) 

Bureau of Engraving & Printing

This ATM gives out $100,000 notes!!

The Bureau of Engraving & Printing (BEP) is responsible for the design, engraving and printing of US paper currency.  When the BEP started in 1862, it was just six people who separated/sealed notes by hand in the basement of the Treasury building. The BEP moved to its present DC site in 1914. The Fort Worth, TX facility was created in 1991 to meet increased $ production demands.
  • FY12 BEP delivered ~35M notes a day with a face value of ~$1.5B.
  • FY12 BEP delivered ~8.4B notes at an average cost of 8.7 cents per note.
  • Between TX & DC facilities ~11.1 tons of ink per day were used during FY12. 
  • Over 90% of the notes BEP delivers each year are replace notes in circulation.

http://moneyfactory.gov/uscurrency/largedenominations.html
The largest note ever printed by the BEP was the $100,000 Gold Certificate, Series 1934. These notes were printed from Dec 18, 1934 through Jan 9, 1935 and were issued by the Treasurer of the US to Federal Reserve Banks (FRB) only against an equal amount of gold bullion held by the Treasury. These notes were used for transactions between FRBs and were not circulated among the general public.

Shenandoah Mt Cabin Trip

As a fun final family of four outing we decided to take a trip to the Shenandoah Mountains.  The Shenandoah National Park is only 1.5 hours from where we live.  And to make the event even more relaxing, we decided to go cabin-ing, versus camping.  The kids loved the hikes, the river and the cave (Luray Caverns).  Despite Maliah getting a bad ear infection, presumable from all the time spent in the hot tub at the cabin, we had a grand time!!!

Family Pics (at Jefferson Memorial)

Over Labor Day weekend we snapped some pictures of the family on the back steps of the Jefferson Memorial, which is on the tidal basin in downtown DC.