Visiting the Capitol.

Our besties from BYU, David and Nicole Ellis, are doing an internship in Washington, D.C. this semester. With them only eight and a half hours away instead of the normal 26, we had to make the trip to visit. It is an added bonus that they are living in the capitol :)

We headed out of Lexington on Thursday evening after Chuck's last class. Jackson did such a great job on the trip. He took his last nap and went to bed at about the same times as he would at home. He is a stellar little traveler. Chuck and I stayed with his Aunt who lives in the area. It was great to see some of his family that we don't get to see as often.

On Friday morning Chuck and I headed to the capitol early and planned to meet Leah, who was landing that afternoon, and David and Nicole around 1pm.

Funny side note: As we are playing the "Game On!" diet with the Krebs family, we had to "weigh in" on Friday morning. I forgot to bring our scale and Aunt Marsali doesn't have one. We had two options: just skip out on the points and eat breakfast (because we were STARVING) or two, go find a scale at CVS. We are pretty competitive and since we were fighting for first at that point, we opted for option two. We went to CVS and got a scale but they didn't have a bathroom there so we left and headed downtown to look for a place to eat and to weigh ourselves. Finally we parked and found a Panera, got undressed in their bathroom, weighed ourselves and FINALLY ate a delicious breakfast. Quite a sacrifice for our silly game, but a funny story at least :)

We started by just walking down Pennsylvania Ave. and checking out the White House, going to an art gallery, checking out the Washington Monument and then grabbling lunch at the farmer's market outside of the Department of Agriculture where we met up with Nicole, David and Leah.

Hanging in the Art gallery.

This is carved out of a single block of Mahogany. Amazing.

Just hanging out on Jackson Avenue :)

He thinks it's hilarious to pull Dad's hair. We are working on that.

Momma and Jack :)

Is he a stud or what?

so fun to see these guys again!

 That day we went to the Natural History museum, which was a blast!

Leah got him to fall asleep! Way to go :)

On Saturday morning we met at the National Gallery of Art and checked it out for a few short minutes while we waited for everyone to get together. Then we headed to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta, Constitution and Bill of Rights. I feel so blessed to live in America!

National Art Gallery - nice face, David :)

When I lived in Paris on my study abroad I fell in LOVE with this fabulous bakery there called Paul's. We ate there at least once a week. I mean, pasteries to die for. Millefeuille aux fraises. Chocolat religeuse. Tarte aux framboises. Okay, you get the point. Pretty much awesome. And do you know what we found while we were frantically looking for a bathroom? PAUL'S. I got teary-eyed. Chuck laughed at me, but it is the symbol of everything lovely and perfect about my experience in France. That and it's like heaven in my mouth. So we went there. And got three pasteries. Between the two of us. :)

This is when our camera battery died : ( Afterwards, we checked out the capitol building and the Air and Space museum. Pretty awesome stuff! Except for when Jackson had a screaming meltdown in the Rotunda of the capitol of all places. Luckily, everyone in there had headphones for the tour so at least his magnified cries were muffled :)

We went home and put Jackson to sleep then headed back out to eat delicious cupcakes and check out the Lincoln memorial! It was SO fun to play around at the Lincoln memorial with our buddies.

Well don't they looked excited.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that we are parents - especially when we act like this :)

This is when Chuck said, "You know, my phone is dead and Rachel doesn't have your number, so if Jack wakes up there is no way they could get ahold of us."

Love.

We went to church on Sunday morning with Chuck's uncle and then headed back home. We had such a blast and felt like we could go there a dozen more times and still have more things to see and do! Thanks for playing with us, Nicole and David! And thanks to Chuck's family for putting us up!