DC Trip, Part 1

Well, hello blog.

Long time no chat.

We just returned from a week in Washington DC and Williamsburg.  It was a whirlwind-- tons of fun, packed with awesome family time and lots of learning for the girls as well.

I'll just share a few pictures of the first few days of our trip, while the girls are finishing up Disney's Pocahontas (they just *had* to begin watching it as soon as we got off the plane last night) and I'm enjoying some morning coffee in my new Jamestown mug:

The airplane flight was at least half of the excitement for the girls-- their first time on a plane.

C got a big kick out of the fact that her OJ came in a can.  She kept saying, "I'm pretending it's a beer."

After our plane ride, we settled in at Zach and Piper's house and had some nice relaxing times.

On Friday of last week we went to the Air & Space museum on the National Mall.  The girls were psyched!!!  (N wore her glow-in-the-dark rocket ship shirt for the occasion, as you see!)

The perfect complement to our homeschool studies of the solar system!

The next day, we visited Mount Vernon... such a beautiful place.

They were having a fall family festival, so we got to participate in some fun "extra" activities like corn-husk doll making:

...and a kids' maze:

...and we got to hear some period folk/dance music, performed by a live musical ensemble.  The girls loved that!

We toured the mansion:

The fall leaves were perfect, the day was sunny... Mount Vernon is one of my favorite places (I first visited back before the girls were born) but I had forgotten how vast the grounds are... it was extremely exhausting for the girls to do all of that walking, especially after the previous day at Air & Space.  We also got a bit of a late start so we were there exactly during what should have been nap time.  I knew coming in to this vacation that there was an overwhelming amount of things to see and experience, and due to limitations with tired kiddos and nap and eating schedules we would probably only get a small taste of each attraction.  But the exposure was enough for the girls to thoroughly enjoy themselves, and there are many years for coming back!  (Really, the girls showed far more stamina than I expected of them... I think pure excitement adrenaline carried them through.)

Well, the credits are rolling on Pocahontas, so that will have to do it for part 1.  There are four more days of fun to blog about!  Stay tuned...

{hop on over to part 2 here}