Washington DC

At the end of September we spent a week out in Baltimore/Washington DC. We stayed with one of Mark’s good friends, Ty, from high school and his cool family.  They were great hosts and made sure we didn’t get lost.  Here is an overview of all the stuff we did.

Monday:

Bureau of Printing and Engraving –

We  got to watch money being printed. If only we could make it that fast ourselves!

Arlington National Cemetery -

Arlington House where General Lee had lived (who knew?)

Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unkown

American History Museum (Smithsonian) –

Muppets and Mark windsurfing

A walking tour of the monuments -

 
Washington Monument (it was closed so we didn’t get to go in)

WWII

Lincoln Memorial

Vietnam Memorial (not very well lit at night)

MLK (this is a new one this year)

FDR

 
Jefferson Memorial

Tuesday:

Library of Congress –

Super cool architecture!

The Capitol -

The Rotunda

Philo T. Farnsworth

Sleeping baby

Supreme Court -

Spiral staircase they don’t use because they fear their soundness (how silly)

Botanic Garden (Smithsonian) -

Wednesday:

We weren’t so touristy.  We hung out at Ty’s house and Mark and I went to the DC temple and did sealings, a good anniversary-time activity!

Thursday:

Air and Space Museum (Smithsonian) -

Sculpture Garden -

National Archives – (It’s the building in back)

Then we went to our hotel in DC, got ready for a hot date (for our anniversary celebration) and left Claire behind.  Mark and I went out to dinner at a little Italian place and then we walked to the Kennedy Center to see Les Miserable.  It is a much bigger theater than what we have in Boise.  The play was excellent, though we did get a little lost because we couldn’t understand all of the words so we had to read the synopsis in our programs during intermission to catch up.

Friday:

White House -

Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian) -

Saturday:

We visited Ft. McHenry in Baltimore (where the flag was flying that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner).

Then we played a round of Disc Golf.  How could Mark and Ty get together without playing disc golf?  It would be tragic.

Then we were off to the airport for our next adventure.

Thanks guys!  We had lots of fun!

Summertime

At the end of May Claire and I made a trip down to Utah.  We went to a college friend’s wedding, Callie’s Dad’s viewing (sad, but good to see her and her family), visited Mom and Maddie and then went out to Vernal to stay with Grammy for a few days.  We love our Grammy (GG)!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next weekend (Memorial Day) we all went up to Coeur d’Alene to visit Mark’s sister Lisa.  Neither of us had ever been that far north in Idaho.  It was beautiful.  The drive is a lot more scenic than the drive down to Utah, though a little windier.  We went for a bike ride around the lake, went up to Brad’s parents cabin on Lake Pend Orielle where Claire had her first “swimming” experience and her first s’more (that was good stuff!) and explored their now home of Sandpoint.

!       

In June we went down to Logan for Father’s Day.  The best part was a bike ride to the park where we picnicked and played at the park.

 

In the midst of all that, we have been doing mass amounts of painting (a rental),

landscaping our yard (mostly done now),

(what nerds, laying things out with hoses, boards and newspapers)

(I even got my vegetable garden planted, though it was a little late.)

Mark had a birthday(Pool Party!),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Claire learned to crawl (in the grass none the less),

pull herself up, make messes (we now make sure the pantry door is fully closed, sometimes she whines as she goes by because she wants in)

and unroll toilet paper.