Family - Part 3

This post covers the time we spent with Wes, Rebecca, and their kids, Andrew and Makayla. Seeing as they stayed with us the longest amount of time, and did the most with us, this is the longest post.


After dropping Shawn's family off at the airport, on Sunday, we spent a relaxing day at home. We put the kids to bed and then Chris and Wes left for West Virginia. Wes had to go to his training meetings, so Chris drove him the hour and a half to the hotel and convention center, where everything was being held, and came home the next morning.
We spent Monday at home.
Tuesday we drove into town to see the monuments. (I have no pictures of this day. I took the camera, but forgot that the battery was dead.) We first went to Arlington Cemetery, and watched the Changing of the Guard. Then we drove over to a picnic spot and had lunch. We walked all over the mall, visiting the Lincoln memorial, the Vietnam memorial, and the World War II memorial. We got back in the cars by 3:00 PM just in time to miss rush hour traffic.

Wednesday, we once again drove into town, this time to visit the Museums. We first saw the Air and Space Museum. The kids did really well, and we bought them little space shuttles to help keep them entertained. They kept singing the theme song for the Backyardigans Mission to Mars.


Then we walked the long walk to see the White House, and then off to the History Museum. Andrew LOVED the Dinosaur bones, Sam fell asleep in his stroller, and Landon flatly refused to go anywhere near any bones. So Landon and I ended up sitting in a small room watching an old 70's movie depicting cell division. It was "WAY exciting". Needless to say I was DONE after seeing it about five times, and we left so we could beat rush hour traffic home again.

Thursday Rebecca and I were invited over to the Peacocks house for water play and Lunch. The kids had a great time in the water, and Landon even went down the slide all by himself. Amazing considering he refused to do it at the Water Mines with his Aunt Tasha. Sam spent most of his time sitting on the steps and playing in the sandbox.



Thanks to Brit for getting us out of the house so Chris could fill out job applications and look for possible PHD schools without interruption. It was a great day with lots of laughter (I got a couple of great stories out of Brit and Rebecca!) and the kids had a great time!

Friday Chris went to pick up Wes from work, but because of traffic it took them a VERY LONG time to get home. We had wanted to leave home for Virginia Beech early so we would miss rush hour, but instead we hit it head on. The first two hours we drove only twenty miles. In the end a four hour drive took over seven. We got to the hotel after 10:00 PM. Wes used his accumulated points to get us all a free room, for the night.


This is how we spent the night. We had a free breakfast in the morning and headed out for the beach.

The boys loved it! Sam went with Chris out into the deep waves, but Landon refused to go deeper than his knees. He just wanted to stay on the edges, run in and out of the small waves, and throw sand. After leaving the beach we got a phone call from Chris' yougest brother, Jonathan. He was planning on visiting us when he finished his job at the end of August, but he was done early and wanted to know if he could come sooner. (Sure. Why not!!! Join the party!) We had lunch/dinner at the Outback Steakhouse and at 5:00 left for home. We hit traffic just right and got home in just over four hours.
Sunday was thankfully a day of rest, for most of us. Chris subbed in Primary with the eight-year-olds, and so I sat with him between the times I had to be in the Library.
Monday Chris picked Jonathan up from the airport around 10:00 AM and we headed back into D.C. Andrew didn't get enough of the History Museum, so went back to look at the bones again. I wasn't going to sit and watch the cells again, so instead we took the boys to the second floor to see the rocks. Landon's favorite spot in the whole museum was this EXIT sign.

He made sure to show Sam all the letters.

We dropped Wes and Rebecca off at the Reagan airport, and drove home. Jonathan crashed into bed, and Chris and I spent a very quiet evening together. Since then, Sam has asked me at least once a day where Andrew and Makayla are, and when we went to Lunch at Landon's primary teacher's housem, this last Wednesday, he kept calling her little girl(who's name is Ella) "Kayla".

Jonathan leaves tomorrow evening and I'm afraid to say that, since the History museum on Monday, we haven't done anything with him. Sure He and Chris played a game of Tennis and we took him to dinner once, but mostly we've all been trying to clean the house and recover from all the driving we've been doing.

It's been quite a month for family. We're very happy everyone came, and hope to see them all soon....though perhaps next time we can spread everything out a little more, so we're not so exhausted at the end of it.