Summerness

Remember when I said the blog would now mostly contain cute pics of our nieces and friends' babies? Well. I'm about to deliver on that promise. 

We've spent the last month enjoying our summer, spending time with friends and family, and traveling. Here's a summary of July in pictures. 

We spent 4th of July in Virginia Beach with Chuck's sister and family. It rained most the time we were there so we made the most of it anytime the sun was out!

Colonial Williamsburg

Fireworks on the bay!

I love how their dog sleeps on the steps.

We've been trying to utilize our apartment complex pool this summer more than we did last summer. We've spent a lot of Saturdays at the pool and a super fun Friday night pool cookout with friends.

Chuck's other sister (who lives in Louisville) got a new puppy and he is ADORABLE.

The whole family got together to celebrate my Grandma's birthday!

We went to the lake with friends to celebrate Jen's son Brendan turning 13!

And last but not least, we hung out with this little dude a lot. I CAN'T STAND THE CUTENESS!

That's all for now. An update on the house hunting process coming soon......

Spring Break

Last week was Chuck's spring break. We decided a few weeks back that we wanted to get out of the city for the week and go South, hopefully to somewhere a little warmer. So, we did go South but unfortunately it wasn't any warmer than it was in Boston. But that's ok. We had fun anyway.

The first weekend of the break, we drove down to D.C. which is only about a 6.5-7 hour drive. (I know 7 hours is a lot but after driving from Seattle to Boston, 7 hours is like a piece of cake to us.) We stayed Saturday-Monday, left our car parked the entire time and used the Metro and our feet to get us everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE.

Day 1:
The Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial.

After the monuments, we were starving and wanted to watch some basketball games, so we headed to a restaurant in Chinatown called the Redline which someone had recommended to us. The atmosphere was really cool and there were huge TVs everywhere, but it took so long for them to seat us that by the time we got a table, the restaurant had turned into a club and we were pretty much the only people ordering food. Oh and people were dancing all around us and the bouncer stood right next to our table and kept leaning over me to look out the window. Awesome. We were mad at first but then we just had to laugh. It was pretty ridiculous.

Day 2:
We hit a few of the Smithsonian museums, walked around the Capitol, ate lunch at a hole in the wall place with the locals, walked to the Jefferson Memorial, hit a another museum, and then ate dinner at a place in Arlington called "Ray's the Steaks"- a place our friends and former D.C. residents had recommended as the best place to get an inexpensive steak dinner in the city. They were right. It was so. good.

 Oh yeah- forgot to mention. I'm obsessed with the Metro. It made me never want to ride the subway in Boston or NYC again.

 

Day 3:
We got to the Capitol bright and early (seems everyone else had the same idea) to try to get on a tour of the inside, took a tour of the inside, got passes to go into the gallery to watch the House in session (which lasted 5 minutes and not a single representative was present...), visited the Library of Congress and then last but certainly not least, stopped by the original Georgetown Cupcake to get some treats to take to our next stop- Virginia Beach.

Monday afternoon we drove 3ish hours from D.C. to Virginia Beach to spend the rest of the week with Chuck's sister Shawn and her family. This was our 3rd time in Virginia Beach in 7 months. It's starting to feel like our second (third?) home.

I hardly took any pictures because most of the time we were just doing normal family things. We ate dinner together every night, Chuckie and I took lunch to the girls at school and ate with them in the cafeteria, we played Wii, we played Chess and Scrabble and Clue, we went to the park, we took Caroline to praise team rehearsal at church..... We really tried to take advantage of the fact that they still want to hang out with us and think we're cool. Soon they'll be teenagers and probably think we're boring old people!

On our own, we saw Divergent at the movie theater, walked the mall, had lunch on the beach and then walked the beach even though it was pretty cold, visited a historic house, the deWitt Cottage, on VA Beach that was owned by one of my Grandpa's cousins (and visited by my Grandpa as a kid) and is now the oldest remaining house on the waterfront, became regulars at the Starbucks up the street from Shawn's house, did crossword puzzles, drove to Norfolk and ate lunch and watched a glass blowing class... On our last night in town, the girls had a sitter and the adults went to a local brewery and then a Cuban restaurant. It was the perfect ending to a great vacation!

Oh. And I may have spoiled the family dog, Zoe, a bit much while we were there. This is how she started greeting me in the mornings when I got out of bed. Ready in position for me to rub her belly.

Overall it was an awesome trip.  My only regret, now that I've gone back through pictures, is that we didn't get any pictures of us with the nieces. I guess this just means we'll have to go back to VA Beach sooner rather than later! :)