Where do you go when you have a few hours in the afternoon of a delightful day in late January, when you just want to be outside, take a stroll, not spend a ton of money, and have a group of people (including two babies and two dogs) you are trying to accommodate?

If you live in the DC area, Teddy Roosevelt Island!

This lovely hidden gem along the GW Parkway is a great option for such an event. There’s parking. It’s flat, relatively stroller friendly, and perfect for meandering on a winter’s day. A winter bonus is that when the trees are barren, you actually get some pretty amazing views across the Potomac River into Georgetown.

So we gathered this lovely group together and set off on a stroll around the island.

Don’t Caroline and Roman Noodle look thrilled to be here? They begged us all day to go, and then when we finally arrived, we got this:

Roman pretended to sleep so we could all admire his luscious eyelashes, which we did. You may also note that he enjoys the same pacifier style as his dear cousin Caroline. I anticipate this may lead to some tears in the not-too-distant future, but for right now, no one has had a case of THAT’S MINE 🙂

Eventually these two perked up and we got Caroline up close with nature. Here she is touching bark for the very first time in her baby life:

We may have a future arborist on our hands. She really liked the texture of the tree bark. We also took a break from our stroll to capture some shots in the nice natural lighting–one of the nicest parts of winter.

Caroline enjoys her role as Mike’s personal hair stylist. People pay a lot of money for product to put in their hair to get that spiked look but Mike achieves the same result by putting a few Cheerios in his hair and letting Caroline’s little baby fingers go on a scavenger hunt.

Caroline insisted on wearing her fox dress and fox shoes because NATURE. She wanted to show solidarity in case we stumbled across the real deal.

This is Caroline’s new wave–it’s her arm straight up with the grand finale of a wrist twist that comes across like WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?

Thank you, Teddy Roosevelt Island, for accommodating our motley crew!