DC

As usual, these are in completely random order - someday, SOMEDAY I will learn how to put them in the right order. Or maybe not. Mt. Vernon, yesterday.

Josiah & Annika on the front lawn with the Potomac in the distance--the Washingtons had quite the view.

Josiah, Annika, Jake & Luca watching re-enactors making ice cream.

Luca, Josiah, Jake & Annika on the banks of the Potomac.

Mount Vernon

Waiting to start touring - luckily there is a pen of sheep right at the entrace to keep the kids enthralled while the adults queue up for tickets.

Poor, tired Annika...we ran them pretty hard over the weekend. She's asleep in the car just before we met the Sturgeons for supper in Old Town Alexandria.

Me! Whadda ya know? We brought our little old digi camera along and let the kids go nuts with it--unfortunately, most of the pictures look like someone with Tourette's shot them, so they aren't blog suitable! (psst: new hair color as of last Thursday)

Satellites at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum Annex near Dulles Airport...cool place made even cooler by the fact that we waited until after 4:00 p.m. to tour, when parking went from $15 to FREE. Mama likes a good deal. DC can be done for so cheap...we spent $9 to see Bull Run and $37 to see Mount Vernon, otherwise all of our museums/monuments were free. Had one picnic and packed lots of drinks and snacks. Hotel was cheap through Orbitz and we got Mariott points for staying...!

Manassas Battle Field - Saturday a.m.

Walking the battlefield...this is possibly the one moment that they weren't all writhing in bored torment on the ground. Actually, Annika and Will seemed to enjoy it...Josiah did most of the tormented writhing. WHY doesn't a 7-year-old appreciate the history of this place? Sheesh, I just don't get it!

Help. I am sooooooooo bored...(but at least I have a cool tarantula shirt!).

I liked the texture on this one.

And the filminess/age of the glass on this one.

The first battlefield is fairly small--the second battlefield would have required a drive of 18-20 miles roundtrip.

Friday evening--we got into town around 4:30, had supper at our hotel and then headed downtown to see some monuments. I'm so glad we did it this way as it was less crowded and cooler. We did get rained on, just a little. Lincoln Memorial. Wish I had some closer-up pictures, but I carried William up and he was having none of this history crap and screamed like crazy all around the portico. Oh well, at least I got a peek. Love the sign "Please be silent out of respect". Oops, sorry Mr. Lincoln. Don't take it personally.

I like how this one turned out too...the setting sun, the reflection. Unfortunately, if you blow it up, you can see rain drops on the lens, but I still like it.

Casa Obama...