Wonderful Weekend in DC

This past weekend I ventured to DC to site see with my friend Jessica!

I left on Friday morning and drove the 8 hrs all by myself! I was pretty proud considering I normally have narcolepsy when I drive. It was perfect weather with no snow or rain…and I got to cross 3 states off my US Map of places I have visited. Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland.

The first day I spent that night at the Ake’s home and hung out with them. Jaime and I went shopping at Home Goods and I scored on some cute white plates for my plate wall. I will have another post on that. Here is precious little Emerson who is perfect and growing soo big... I don't even remember him this small anymore

Saturday I picked up Jessica and her mom from the airport… well after a lot of confusion. I arrived at the Baltimore airport to pick Jessica up. I was on the phone with her asking her what baggage claim she was at. She kept telling me that she was at baggage claim 4. I was at baggage claim 4 and not a soul was around. Finally she asked me what airport I was at… that’s when I thought to myself OH CRAP! Turns out she was at the DC airport which was 60 miles away.

So I head to the next airport, which took me 55 min to get to, and pick up Jessica. Her Mom missed her flight and would be coming in a few hours later. So we just drive around to find something to eat and finally gave up when there was only 20 min left until her Moms plan landed.

We get mom, we get Jess and we head to the hotel… get checked in and eat dinner then go to bed.

Sunday: we wake up early and buy tickets for a 2 day pass on the trolley which takes us all around DC.

First stop, White House! Did you know the president doesn't live in the White House? Well according to the tour guide, he doesn't. Where does he live then?

Next stop, National Archives and home of the original Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

It was pretty cool seeing documents from 1787 that are so important to the United States

Next we went to Arlington Cemetery. This place was amazing to me. There are white headstones for miles and miles. 624 miles to be exact.

Arlington Cemetery is a military cemetery that was established during the American Civil War in 1864.

Over 290,000 Veterans and military casualties from every one of the nation's wars are interred in the cemetery, from the American Revolution through the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pre-Civil War dead were reinterred after 1900.

Kennedy grave site

The switching of the guards at the Tombs of the Unknown Soldiers

For dinner, we took a short drive to Riva, MD which sits on part of the Chesapeake Bay. We sat on a deck overlooking the ocean and had the best clam chowder and crab cakes!

That night, we toured the monument at night. They were even better at night time.

Here is the Lincoln Memorial

Here is the Washington Monument. If you look closely, you can see it is 2 different colors. That is because when they started building it in 1848 they only got about 1/3 of the way done before the funds ran out. After almost 30 years the monument was finally completed but at that time, they couldn't find the same stone that was used for the first half. So now we have a multi colored Washington Monument

Monday we started our day out on the trolley again and went to the Washington National Cathedral. It took over 83 years to build and is the 2nd largest cathedral in the US.

Woodrow Wilson and his wife, Edith, are buried there as well as Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan.

We stopped and shopped in Georgetown and ate lunch

The headed over to Fords Theater, where President Lincoln was assassinated.

On April 14, 1865 Mr. Lincoln was shot in the back of the head in that red balcony box

After being shot, the fatally wounded President was carried across the street to the Peterson house, where he died the next morning in this bedroom.

We took a tour of our nations capital and learned of lot of history about the building. It was built in 1793 and the dome on top of the capital is made of solid steal and then painted to resemble stone. The capital was partially burned by the British in the War of 1812 but was rebuilt.

The person on top of the dome is lady Freedom. She stands at 19.5 ft tall. She is the tallest statue in DC and out of respect for Freedom, no human statue can be taller then her.

We topped the day off with a quick trip to the Museum of National History, or also known as the bones and stones museum.

We saw bones of dinosaurs and all different kinds of animals and even some bones of people too.

Another reason for going there was to see one of the biggest diamonds in the world, the Hope Diamond, at just 45.5 carats. It's a honker!!

We tried to see as mush as we could in the 2 days we had and from sun up to sun down we were on the run, and I mean that literally... Our feet hurt so bad and im positive we walked at least 5 miles a day!

The whole trip was great and I had a blast hanging out with friends. I don't do that mush here in Ohio... Next year Jessica and I plan to go back again around the same time so we can finish off our list of things to see.

California here I come

I am coming home!! Not for good though, just to visit!

January 12- January 21

(This is not Baxter. Although, I am sure he could easily learn this trick)

A Visit to Germany

Matt got home from work yesterday really early. We debated calling up the Ake’s (our friends who have moved away) and telling them that we were coming to Washington DC to visit for the weekend, but we didn’t have anyone to watch the dogs. So we settled for Germany.

Not the real Germany, even though that would have been awesome! This Germany is called Germany Village and it’s located in Columbus, OH Just about an hour away from our house. The homes and streets are all brick… I have never been to Germany but im sure this would kind of look like the real deal.

While trying to find a place to eat, we stumbled across our first White Castle. Matt was really happy. He has never eaten here. I didn’t understand what the big deal over this place was but he compared it to California’s In-n-Out burger. Let me tell you….this is NOTHING compared to In-n-Out burger. If I had to, I would compare it to a low end McDonalds. I decided to eat Taco Bell down the street.

[super cheap gas!]

We drove through downtown which looked surprisingly clean and hip…Overall the parts of the city we saw, it seemed pretty nice. No wonder it ranked No.1 for the best place to raise a family in Ohio… runner ups?? Our town!

[The Capital]

Then we headed home just in time for the all the rain to fall.

love traveling!

We Made It

Well, we arrived Monday morning tired, stinky and never wanting to get back into the car again.
It has now Thursday (crap, I just realized I missed The Office and Grey’s Anatomy!!If I was back home, I could still watch them) and so far I really like it. The weather has been about 75* and you can defiantly see that autumn is here.

Dayton is covered in trees and it’s so pretty to look over and see miles and miles of trees and not tell where the city is…
Tuesday, Mom and Koko and I took a drive to a small town called Waynesville. This town is older than Ohio. They had lots of little shops to shop but most where country style décor. Back home, our little shops are more shabby chic.

When we got home from Waynesville, the moves had just got done unloading all of our stuff off the truck. Since then, we have been unpacking. I cannot believe how many boxes we had for our tiny house. As we were unpacking and trying to put things away I realized a lot of my kitchen stuff wouldn’t fit! How is this possible? We went from a 900 sqft home to a 2800 sqft home and I don’t have enough space for my old stuff? My mom is actually quite impressed that I had all this stuff because looking at my house; you never would have thought I did. I was just well organized.

I wish I could say that I have dropped 10 lbs over the past few days from running up and down 3 flights of stairs, but I haven’t. If anything, all the calories I am burning is making me more hungry! So I swing by the kitchen on the main floor just before heading down to the last. It also doesn’t help that the movers put half of the stuff that should have been on the 3rd floor, in the basement and the stuff in that is in the basement is put on the top floor. I guess I can thank them for letting me get a workout.

Tuesday was also Our 2 year anniversary. I wasn’t expecting a gift since we had just moved and life had been so hectic, but my husband was good to me. The first gift, I got a disposable camera. 36 exposures! I thought this was for sure a joke… a disposable camera??? Film?? I kept asking him if there was a REAL camera around here somewhere… There was no way I would be able to find it if it was hidden in this house. The next day, a UPS truck showed up at the door. Matt said he was there to drop off a video card he ordered for his computer. I went about my business and didn’t think twice about it. 5 mins later my brother runs down to the basement and says, “Stevie, come quick… there is a HUGE scratch in your dining room table. I think the movers did it” I said, “We have sat at the table many times in the past few days. There was in scratch in it”. Since I was in mid-screw putting up a curtain rod, I took my time. He kept saying, “ YOU NEED TO COME UP THERE AND LOOK” finally it dawned on me… I stared at him for a minute and he started smiling. Rule 1- never send the brother, who can’t lie to save his life, to try and get me to believe something happened to my furniture!

So when I ran up there I saw Matt holding a gift… as I unwrapped it I saw the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

The new Nikon D90 with 2 lenses and two 8 GB memory cards. I was IN LOVE. I am not even ashamed to say I shed a tear. This camera even does video! And the quality is great!! I thought I would have to wait forever to get a new camera and even then I never thought I would get the one I actually wanted, since it was kind of pricey. We had some fun with the camera...jumping photos! My favorite.

Since Last night, I have been snapping away. I have even caught the C-130 planes that fly over our house… They are so close I can touch them. Well, that’s how I feel at least.

The first time we heard them, we were all in different rooms of the house. All of us started running for the front door, some of us falling down the stairs… or if you were my mom, you were doing the duck and cover on the kitchen floor thinking you were going to die. It was pretty cool. The plane looked to close that we could reach up and touch it.

We have also been waking up to the Air Force Revelry trumpets playing at 7:30 am each morning… kind of nice. I rather wake up to that, then a dog licking me telling me they need to go out and go potty.

Today we took a trip over to the National Air Force Museum and got to go up close lots of planes.

We even toured the presidential air planes including the Air Force 1 that belonged to President Kennedy. This is the same plane that carried his casket home.

Rule #2- don’t take photos of the outside of an Air Force building. Your camera may be confiscated. Luckily, I got to keep mine. Inside photos are ok… outside, not ok.

Well that should bring you up to speed for life in Ohio. Oh yeah, I should mention that gas here is $2.79 a gal. That’s right… $.70 cheaper than California.

I will post photos of the house soon. It isn’t fully unpacked and put together yet. I hope to finish after the family leaves. Here is the front and back though...

Tomorrow we are going to have Chili Spaghetti! Famous in Cincinnati, but Dayton has it too! I plan to do lots of stairs tomorrow to work that off!