DC vacation pics

Sorry it has taken so long to get these pics posted, but as you can see, there are a ton of them!!

Here is our trip, with as little commentary as I could stand.

View from our hotel room:
Smithsonian American Art Museum:

"THE" George Washington portrait on the dollar bill.

Meghan's Great great great......grandfather: Zachary Taylor (Zachary Tye's Great great great great...grandfather)

Mom's first trip to DC and first ride on the Metro:

China Town:
Air Force Memorial: "Go Meghan"

US Capitol: can you tell my mom was excited to visit DC for the first time?

Smithsonian Castle: Did you know that Mr. Smithson never visited the US until after he died (His body is actually inside the castle in a tomb on display), yet he donated his estate to us to make the Smithsonian Museums?

Bureau of Engraving and Printing: So that's what 300 million dollars smells like! They were printing $100 bills while we were there, so there were palates of ~300 million dollars just sitting there. Now I know what my salary looks like in $100 bills! Half of our money is made here. The other half is made in Ft. Worth.

Union Station:

Supreme Court: Did you know that you don't have to be lawyer to be a supreme court judge?

Library of Congress:

WWII memorial: very cool place.

Washington Monument:
From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial: From the Washington Monument :)

Vietnam War Memorial:

White House: If you look really close, you can see Laura Bush in the window.

(just kidding)

Plaque for Volunteers:

Old Ebbitt Grill: if you ever visit DC, you have to eat here!

Our good friend Tara and her friend Michael joined us. They ran in the MCM with us.

National Archives: Where the actual copies of Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights are. Reminds me of National Treasure!

Declaration of Independence:

Smithsonian Museum of Natural History:

Hope Diamond: mom dreaming

OK, enough museums for one trip.

I told you there were a lot of pics!

Election Day!

Since the election, I know many of you have been missing the opportunity to voice your opinion and have missed seeing the polls, so...I have added a poll gadget (to the left)!!

Meg and I are in the market for a more "family-friendly" vehicle as the beamer is quite small with two car-seats (a little too close for comfort with two screaming kids and luggage shoved everywhere), and Katelin is getting to big to fold up in the back seat of the truck (plus I need a little more distance from Katelin when toys get thrown from the back seat...it is outright war sometimes!).

So we have narrowed it down:

GMC Yukon: cool stylish SUV, roomy, gas guzzler, to tall for Meg to put in Tye's car-seat, expensive, ...did I mention stylish?

vs.

Toyota Sienna: not-so-cool mom-mobile, roomy, better gas mileage, perfect height for Meg to get seats into, convenient auto-opening doors, safe, ...did I mention mom-mobile (plus we swore we would never get one...teaches you not to swear, huh?!) (besides when did parenting ever have to be cool and stylish?) (all of the cool features are on the inside, right?) ...yes I am still trying to convince myself.

It may sound like we have made up our minds, but it is not too late to vote!!! Don't worry, in this election, the poll will not be tampered with and your vote WILL count (not sure what it will count for, but we will count the votes).

Army Crawl

I am counting today as Tye's first crawl!!! It is an army crawl, but hey, it's a crawl. Plus it is Veteran's Day so it makes it easier to remember this momentous occasion.

Start...
A little rough start with blankie interference.

A pose for the camera-man.

A little wink for the ladies :)

Finish!! "when did daddy start making me work for my toys?"

It only took 35 minutes 11 seconds. See, he's already got marathon in his blood!!