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! :)

Thanksgiving in Virginia

Tickets to fly to Kentucky for Thanksgiving this year were once again WAY too expensive, so we decided we would tackle the "short" 9.5 hour drive to Chuck's sister Shawn's beautiful and cozy house in Virginia. (Ever since our cross country road trip we feel that 9.5 hours in a car is a breeze .) So Tuesday evening, after I got off work and he got out of class, we started the drive. Looking back, trying to leave Boston at 5:15 pm on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week was probably not the smartest plan, but oh well. Sometimes you learn things the hard way.

We drove through the night to get to Virginia. It rained the ENTIRE  drive, except for maybe 20 total minutes. The traffic was terrible. It took us 2.5 hours just to get 56 miles outside of Boston. So around 5:15 Wednesday morning, yes 12 whole hours later, we rolled into Virginia Beach. Chuck said it was just like Planes, Trains and Automobiles, except just Automobiles.

Wednesday was a nice relaxing day which was needed after only about 3-4 hours of sleep. All of the women of the house took the younger girls to the movie theater to see the new Disney princess movie, Frozen, which everyone loved, including the adults.

The rest of the day we spent doing grocery runs, prepping food for the next day, eating a yummy ham dinner, baking pumpkin bread and pumpkin pies, listening to Chuckie play guitar while the girls took turns singing along, and watching movies.

Thanksgiving Day we were all up early. We had breakfast, watched the Macy's Parade in our pajamas, colored turkeys and other things on some coloring sheets Shawn had for everyone, learned the Cups song, did crafts, wore festive hats, and colored some more.  Oh and I got to pump the turkey full of buttery goodness before it got cooked. :)

My parents and sisters kept me updated throughout the day on their Thanksgiving in Louisville.  They spent the morning with my tiny little Grandma deWitt.

 Later in the day when they were at my other Grandma's house, we got to skype with them and all of my cousins and aunts and uncles! We love FaceTime, especially on holidays.

Finally it was time to eat dinner. I made sure I didn't stop eating until I was miserable, as that's my personal Thanksgiving tradition.

That night we cleaned up, watched the Lady Gaga and the Muppets special (more on that in my next post) and watched the David Blaine magic special.

Friday, me and all the guys (all THREE of them...they are sadly outnumbered by the ladies) went to the outlet malls in Williamsburg. It was insanely busy, as one might assume it would be on Black Friday, but fun. Chuck and I walked around and looked for deals but didn't end up buying anything. After the outlet mall, we headed to Busch Gardens to meet up with the van full of girls.  Busch Gardens decorates the entire park for Christmas, sells hot chocolate and wassail at every vendor, has carolers walking around singing, and they put on several shows in all parts of the park. Most of the big rides are closed (I guess because it's cold) but a lot of the kiddie rides are open, which is what we probably would have been doing anyways. Also, year round, the park is divided up into countries, so it sounded really funny throughout the day when we'd talk about where to go next and say "Well we're in England, so let's take the train over to Italy and then we'll walk to Germany from there."

We rode some rides with the girls, saw two shows with singing and dancing, drank so much hot chocolate we all felt sick to our stomachs from it, and looked at pretty Christmas lights and decorations.

This next picture makes it look like Audrey was taken on this ride against her will but I promise she wanted to go and at the end of the ride she was thrilled and wanted to do it again.

On Saturday, everyone was pretty exhausted from our day in the cold, so we made that our "chill at home day" and did just that. The girls did some more crafts, we ate more, the guys watched football, I helped the ladies shop for some Christmas gifts, we taught everyone Telepictionary, and then we watched Spiderman.

Sunday we left Virginia at 6:30am, thinking we'd get home by 4 or 4:30 that day. Of course, we didn't get home until almost 7:30.

The driving portion of the trip was awful, but it was all worth it to get to be with some family for Thanksgiving.