A trip away for a few days!

That was exactly what I needed! Mike and I just got back from Virginia and Washington DC! A big thank-you to Doug & Cath for being such great hosts with the mos-test! We had comfortable accomodations, good food and great tour guides thanks to them! We had a great time getting to know their 3 little princesses better...and we are amazed at how well they do everything with 3 babies in tow! So, here's the recap....and remember this is also my scrapbook, so the pictures/explanation might get a little long.....plus, I'm really tired and I might not be coherant...or maybe spell the words wrong! Maybe I'll do a day at a time...

Front of house...

We got to DC late on Wednesday night...rented a car and headed to Fairfax. D&C were so nice to stay up past midnight waiting for us and helped us get a plan going for the morning. We decided to first go to Monticello-the home of Thomas Jefferson. This is Mikey's first trip to DC. I had been there before (for Danny's auto competition!), but hadn't seen Monticello. It was about a 2 hour drive, but a beautiful one! Everything is so green! We had a hilarious, very proud Virginian man as our tour guide. He was extremely passionate about Jefferson and very knowledgable. Also, very opinionated about the discussion of Jefferson's relations with Sally, one of his slaves. Anyway, Monticello is really a little city on a hill. Jefferson had inherited the mountaintop and here he built his home. We were told that he welcomed anyone who would come up to see him. He had a grand entrance (we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the mansion), where he would greet guests...anyone from heads of state to farmers. He was an inventor as well as a politician, but wanted to be known as a farmer.

This is a working farm still, where the volunteers take home the food. Anyway, beautiful gardens...why don't mine ever look like this? I did find a neat way to plant peas. I will try and then post if it works....Mike and I were able to walk right down by the gardens. Beyond the vegi garden were orchard trees, grapevines, etc. Really an amazing place. Underneath the house were the areas where the slaves worked. They even had an underground tunnel/more like a hallway/that they would use to move around the property, bring food to the dining room, etc. We spent most of the day here. It was very interesting to hear the stories of Jefferson's life. His gravesite is also on the property...if I can figure out how to rotate the picture, I will post it. It's about here that I got a phone call from Sydney. Mike's Mom and Dad came to stay with the kids and they were having a great time! Grandma came prepared with fun projects and did a great job entertaining, getting kids where they needed to be for their activities and taking care of the house and washing the clothes! (Renae, I told you not to worry about that, but Thank You!).

When we got back to D&C's, we picked up Doug and headed to a Washington DC Nationals game (vs the Mets). We took the Metro out to the new stadium. It took FOREVER to get tickets out of the automated ticket booths, but we ended up with pretty decent seats. We got dogs and Fanta for dinner. Sorry, but the hot dogs at Rice-Eccles are MUCH better! That took forever, too, and we started to see a trend for this trip....standing in lines. The Nats won and we even saw a Grand Slam (by the Nats). That was pretty fun as none of us had seen one before. We left after the 7th inning stretch and singing of the all-American classic, 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' We wanted to get back on the Metro before the rest of the fans came. It was still crowded even though we left early. We spent some more time talking with D&C when we got home and ended up going to bed after 1am.....(another trend). We had a great first day!