Washington DC

My friend and his family were sealed in the Washington DC temple last weekend so Travis and I decided to turn it into a family vacation. It was a trip fof our trip. We decided to leave on Thursday. I took the day off and Travis worked a half day. We both ended up getting about three hours of sleep the night before because Travis was on call and had to work most of the night and then had an early start the next day. There were a couple of little home projects that really needed to get done before we left and so Travis spent Thursday afternoon fixing our fence and installing bolt locks in all (4) of our doors. I think we finally got on the road around 7ish. Allias had totally cleaned out and vacuumed the van for our trip so that was very nice. We stopped at Kroger and got some road food and then ordered pizza from Papa John's for dinner. I was exhausted so I fell asleep. Around ten o'clock Travis woke me up and said he was falling asleep at the wheel and needed me to take over. I don't see well in the dark and since Travis ALWAYS drives when we take road trips together I didn't bring my glasses and I was also very tired but I took over at the wheel. I think my kids were pretty scared. LOL! I kept having to slow down to make sure I was staying on the road and I ended up drinking a couple of energy drinks to stay awake. We finally got to our friends the Evan's house at around 2:30 in the morning. We had never been there before and as we walked in their house (they left it unlocked for us) we were really hoping we had found the right place. I am bummed because we didn't think to bring the camera in and get some pictures while we were there but it was so nice to see them again and catch up and listen to their adorable kids chatter about webkinz and other kiddy stuff. We didn't leave their house until like one in the afternoon on Friday.

( Tyler trying to figure out the parking meter)
We headed downtown and parked. We toured the American History Museum and the Museum of Natural History. I was reminded of how hard it is to please everyone at once and I also decided that vacations with teenagers who would rather be doing anything other then walking around with their parents aren't really that much fun. Tyler ended up walking off on his own several times and every time I happened to bump into him he was with a different group of girls. Travis was getting tired so he headed out to the car. Good thing he did because when he got there we had gotten a hundred dollar parking ticket and a tow truck was on its way to pick us up. We had parked in a place that becomes a lane after 4 o'clock.

( Kailyn on the para sail)

(Trav and the kids getting ready to tour one of the museums)

Driving in DC is an absolute nightmare. There are so many people and cars and noise. I could never live in a place like that. It was way too busy for me. I chewed my fingernails down to nothing and I wasn't even the one driving. The only way to switch lanes is to cut people off and until we figured that out we ended up driving in circles (squares actually) for at least 30 minutes. And the pedestrians just walk or stand in the middle of the road. A group of people hailing a cab will take up a whole lane and everyone has to try and move over into traffic to get around them. It totally stressed me out. By the time we got to our hotel (which was NOT in the city thank goodness) my back and neck were killing me and I was ready for bed. Travis went and picked up some Chinese food and we all ate and then crashed out. Tyler discovered they had computers for public use in the lobby and I think he spent the majority of his vacation on myspace. The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then I headed to the temple for my friend's sealing. Our hotel had a Book of Mormon in the drawer along side the bible and it had the phone number and address for the temple so I assumed it would be close. I was pretty excited when I typed the address into my GPS and it said it was five minutes away. The ceremony was beautiful and it was so nice to see how happy Brian and his wife are and to meet their two darling little boys. When Brian got active and his wife was baptized they shared the gospel with some friends of theirs who were then also baptized. The Alexander's have three children and their family was sealed as well. It was sooo awesome to see what the gospel has done for these precious families. The Alexander's eleven year old boy was deeply touched and kept wiping away his tears. There really wasn't a dry eye in the place. The sealing was supposed to be at like 10 I think but their were some technical issues and so I think it ended up happening around 11 or so.

I got back to the hotel at like 12 and we headed back down to DC. We ate lunch at Subway and then we decided to tour the Holocaust museum. It was raining and we didn't have a lot of time since we needed to meet Brian and his family for dinner around 6. It took forever to find a place to park and by the time we started our tour it was 3:30. We didn't get to see the last part of the exhibits which was kind of a bummer but we all were touched by what we did get to see. Again Tyler kind of did his own thing but I don't think he met any girls. We didn't get out of DC until like 5:30 and traffic was pretty much stop and go. I can't imagine what it would look like on a weekday. We arrived in Stafford around 7. Our reservations were for 7:15. We stopped at Ross for a second and Tyler decided to disappear. Travis took the other kids and I to the restaurant and then went back to look for him. After several minutes Travis called me and I told him just to come to dinner. I told everyone at the table that I could bet Tyler would show up. Sure enough he did. We all laughed even though I was slightly stressed out. We had a great time at dinner and then we hung out at the Van Hoven's until late. It was soooo nice to catch up and to get to know Kim better. We had a GREAT time. I always leave places wishing i lived closer or in their case wishing they lived closer to me. I would/could never live up there.

(Travis and I with Brian and Kim and our families)
We were going to go to church in VA on Sunday morning but they were having Stake Conference so we decided to try and fit a few more touristy things in. It was raining again and we couldn't decide what we wanted to do. We stopped and did some shopping at TJ Maxx and then headed downtown. Traffic was terrible and by the time we got down there it was like 1 or 2 o'clock. The kids were being super rowdy in the car and Travis was talking on the phone and not paying attention to the GPS telling him where to go. I was upset and he pulled over and told me to drive. I just decided it was time to go home. It was actually a good thing that I did because traffic was sooooo bad getting out of DC that we spent at least two hours sitting in traffic. We pulled off around 3 and ate some fast food and then we pulled off again to get gas. We ended up getting gas in the same town as we had dinner Saturday night. I think it was around 5 or so when we got there so what should have been a 1 hour drive had turned into around 3 hours. Travis took over driving at that point and we got home around 9. I have decided that the best part about vacations are the time you spend visiting with family and friends. I don't know if you could convince me to go back to DC to sight see. Maybe in better weather where I could just park my car somewhere and walk around but I don't even know about that.

(the ride home)

You can see the rest of our pictures here