virginia vacation time

We have had good flying karma since I was pregnant with Owen and we spent Christmas Eve-Eve at the O'Hare airport.  That ended on our trip out to Virginia, where flight delays ended up keeping us in Portland for an extra day, and moved our flights to a red-eye.  We spent the extra time cruising on the Max (where 3 of us took some naps), then wandering Saturday Market with a box of Voodoo Donuts. We had dinner at IKEA then back to the airport to wait for our flight.  We were concerned about how the boys would handle sleeping on the plane, and for the most part, they did great.  The flight, though, just isn't long enough to count for a good night's sleep.  By the time Dad got us the next morning we were a tired out crew.

The boys perked up with the opportunity to go swimming and to cruise the bay in Grandpa's boat.  Both tried doing some driving, and Owen cruised us up to a waterside view of Grandpa's house.

We took the boys up for an overnight trip to Washington, D.C. for their first visit there.  My dad got us a great hotel in Crystal City, so we were able to take the metro into D.C. and didn't have to deal with parking.  We spent two long, hot days seeing D.C., but we saw almost everything we set out to see.  We lucked into a Capital tour from the Oregon representative's office, which enabled us to view both the Senate and the House in action.  We did a quick view of the Air and Space Museum and Owen was especially excited to see the Wright Flyer.  Ben's favorite museum was the Natural History Museum because of the stuffed Tuna he saw there, and because of the gift shop.  We also got to see an old NYSC friend of mine, Kirby Lee, for dinner, which was a special treat for me.  The last day there we saw the National Archives, the American History Museum, saw the outside of the White House and the Washington Monument, and saw the WWII, Vietnam, and Lincoln Memorials.  Dad and I also got to be in the middle of a taxi strike- that was quite a sight- hundreds and hundreds of empty, honking, taxies circling the Mall.

Back on the bluff, the boys went out and did some successful fishing (I believe the count was in the 30's!), more swimming, and more relaxing in the sun.  A really nice way to kick off the summer!