VA, DC and the 4th

Paul and I were able to take a week to go to the east coast with his whole family and visit his brother Chip in Virginia and took a little jaunt up to DC to see the sites as well. It was so much fun and we were able to watch fireworks from the National Mall sitting right underneath the Washington Monument. I have a bazillion pictures so here are some of them in order of days.

1st Day
We stayed the night with Chip and Stephanie in Charlottesville, VA and then visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, the next day

Meeting cousin Cash for the first time

Monticello, TJ's home :)

2nd Day
We went to Colonial Williamsburg, which basically is a whole town that has been preserved and still looks like it did back in the 16-1700's. Kinda cool, a little boring, but I guess we needed to check it out.

The girls taking a little rest from all our walking around

Watching a battle recreation between patriots and red coats

On the 4th we scouted out a seat under the Washington Monument on the Mall to watch the fireworks. We were there for about 5 hours waiting for the show to start so we got a little tired :)

4th Day
We went out to Mt Vernon to see George Washington's digs along the Potomac. I could not believe how green and beautiful the east coast was. All the freeways are like tunnels between 30 ft trees. Being from Mesa and living in Palm Desert I have a lack of vegetation and couldnt get over the fact that there are some places in the world where green stuff actually grows! After Mt Vernon we visited the DC temple and went to dinner with the fam.

Mt Vernon. This is Wahington's back porch overlooking the Potomac. SO beautiful!

Washington's grave. He's buried on site at his plantation next to Martha.

5th Day
6 Flags, and this was the only picture that we took that day, haha. Nap much Anne? I love that even though he is 5 1/2 mo old he will still cuddle and take naps with me.

6th Day
Our whole time in DC we kept seeing these double-decker site seeing buses so we decided to take one of those around to see all the sites in one day. We hit the Museum of Natural History, Lincoln Memorial, White House, Korean War memorial, Union Station, National Cathedral (Paul's fav), and tons more of which I did not take pictures.

Paul's 11 year old brother kept asking if we were going to see Obama when we were visiting the white house and we were just laughing at him and saying of course not, but on the 4th when he and Chip were walking by he actually came out on his porch and waved at the crowd outside.

The National Cathedral was ridiculously large. Play wheres Waldo with Paul here and you'll get an idea of the scale. You can lay down the 555 ft Washington Monument inside the nave of the cathedral.
That morning I was watching the news and saw that a famous restaurant was celebrating its 75th anniversary so they were going back to 1934 prices. Come to find out this place was where JFK proposed to Jackie O, and where other presidents would go for brunch and dinner. It was absolutley AAAAmazing. We all got filet mignon for $1.75, crabcakes for .75, chicken a la king, calamari and all sorts of goodies. We were feeding 9 people...so the check comes and we got $344 worth of food for $18!! I'd say Charlie was loving me because he had been picking up the check for most of his kids everywhere else.

JFK and Jackie O's booth at Martin's Tavern

After our trip I went and got a massage to get out all my knots from carrying around chunky monkey Cohen in my kangaroo pouch all week. He is getting so big and did superb on the trip. We have one chill baby my friends. He just goes with the flow, falls asleep anywhere and is pleasant 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time he decided to scream for and hour on the plane heading back to LAX. The only time he would stop was when he was flirting and giggling with the stewardess' in the back. All in all it was such a fun trip and great to spend time wiht Paul's family. We saw a TON of cool stuff, got more than enough exercise and enjoyed beautiful weather the entire time.