Boy or Girl!!

Well it was time to know if Ashley & Benjy were having a boy or a girl! They had their ultrasound and that night we were invited over for cake. I made them a pink cake and a blue cake both and Ashley picked the right one secretly. So no one but her and Benjy knew. It was pretty exciting...

 Oh the anticipation...

 GIRL!!

What a fun night. We are all so excited for the new baby girl. 

Well maybe not Rees and Cooper but the rest of us are.

33rd Anniversary

For our anniversary this year we decided we have been spending so much time and money traveling lately we would just go to Vegas and have a nice dinner. It was hard to pick where to go but we had heard about the Capital Grill so we thought we would give it a try. It is at the Fashion Show Mall just a floor above Magianno's (our 2nd choice). We just love being in a place that has a view of the chef cooking.

 It's pretty special that they throw scatter on your table if you are having a celebration like an anniversary or birthday or something. We had little red hearts everywhere and a personal note from the chef. 

Pretty nice touch!

 

 

Dinner was pretty yummy and they gave us a free dessert! I had wanted creme brulet but who is going to argue with a free banana cream pie that is delicious!

Beauty & the Beast

The only show at Tuacahn we were really interested in seeing this year was Beauty & the Beast. I got tickets in May for us to go right after our trip to Washington DC. I knew they would go fast and we like to sit close. Not only that I figured we would come home broke and I was right! It was a delightful performance. Every play is so excellent and we just love going. It was a perfect night. Well almost. We had dinner at Kneaders on the way there and it was terrible. Both their turkey and chicken sandwiches were made from canned meat! Not too impressive. Al least the play was fantastic.

Winding down

Sunday was our last full day in Washington DC. The trip was winding down but we had so much to cram in yet! We were doing good packing everything in so we had to finish up. We spent the morning at the Holocaust Museum.

It's always such a solemn place to remember the events that happened but an important place to visit. It was still pretty crowded so it took us about 3 hours to see it. We missed Rachel who had to be visit taught that morning but we made it back just in time to get her and head to church. It's always fun to go to someone elses ward and see how things are done there. They have tons of singles in their ward but evidently they hold their own Sunday school in the hall haha. After dinner at Jeff & Rachel's we changed and went back down town to see the monuments at twilight and dark.

 So pretty...the perfect time of the day!

 The Vietnam Wall

Our last  selfie of the trip :(

 The Lincoln Memorial is always so impressive but in the evening it is incredible. It may be my favorite.

 The spot where Martin Luther King gave his speech is marked.

 I love the World War Two Memorial. The quotes engraved all the way around it are incredible.

 We logged lots of steps in to day too but I think we got everything in pretty much. We saved Ford's Theater for next time but other than that I think we gave Christina the GRAND tour of DC.

Monuments & Museums

Christina, Jeff, Rachel & I had to rise and shine early so we could get to our ticketed time for the Washington Monument. We had it worked out pretty well until we had to get off the Metro early because the train schedule was wonky on a Saturday morning. So we power walked all through the Mall and got there just in time. Thank goodness we had tickets because it was sold out for the day for standby.

 I have been up there before but it never gets old. Such an amazing thing to go up. The views are amazing of course and there is so much to discover. They have lots of cool exhibits up there now too to check out. The rangers said they are talking about opening it up so you can walk down soon and we were bummed we missed that. That would have been pretty amazing.

You can just barely see the Washington out on the horizon. Oh ya and there's the White House.

We are pretty darn good at selfies!

 So while we were up there we couldn't help but reenact the time when an Asian stepped right in front of everyone to take a picture out the observation window. So much for personal space. We might have gotten a little dramatic about it but all in all I think Christina pretty much nailed it here!

 Oh look the mall is under construction...again!

 So in the elevator on the way down they slow down and dim the lights so you can see the state blocks that were donated in their fund raising project. Very cool and we are always looking for Nevada.

 After our fun tour (thanks Rachel) we walked over to see the Jefferson Memorial. It's actually quite a hike so we felt like we deserved ice cream on the way. We were hoping to get a tour to the bureau of printing & engraving but it's closed on the weekends darn it.

 

 Here's the girls getting a few mandatory pictures looking back at the Washington Monument.

 After the hike we started slowing down a bit needless to say. We just decided to eat nearby and try to save some time and energy. We had seen a food court a few days before so we went through the Ronald Reagan building to find it. Naturally it was all closed up for the weekend but we did finally hear about another bigger and better one a floor below. It was nice and clean and not too pricey. Jeff & Rachel and I tried the Greek food. Fabulous! We spent some time back in the Smithsonian of American History and I think that might be my new favorite museum. We all split up so we could see what we were interested in.

LOVED the dollhouse. I might be obsessed. Luckily Christina found it because I walked right by it.

 

 But my absolute favorite exhibit was Julia Child's kitchen. They really had her kitchen completely reset up all the way from Boston. It was so amazing. Christina and I were in heaven and spent a ton of time studying everything about it.

 Seriously there was a whole train engine in there!

 Christina was on a roll so we headed on over to the Air & Space museum while we were only about 2000 steps away. She's a trooper. I have to admit after awhile I was pretty focused on finding penny smashing machines since I have been there lots. Even the gift shop was fun.

 

 By the time we met up in the history of flight section we were all dying. I haven't been this tired in forever. I felt vindicated though because even Rachel was tired. And maybe a little punchy. I wish I had the video of her too tired to get up and rolling on the floor.

 After our day of museum hopping and cramming everything in we could we drug ourselves back to the hotel. Jeff & Rachel just hung out with us there and we ordered pizza. Thank goodness because I am pretty sure I couldn't have made the walk one more block to their apartment.

Aug 7 (Part 2)

After we said our goodbyes to Mendis after lunch at Shake Shack,Christina and I got down to some serious sight seeing. We walked over to the Supreme Court Building and took a little self guided tour. I had taken the tour and didn't find it all that critical.So here are the Supreme Court Chambers and this is as far as you can go and still take a picture.

The cool ceiling at the Supreme Court

After we walked all around through the building we headed over to Rachel's office for our Capital Tour. We had about an hour wait while her co-worker got back to lunch so we could go but honestly we welcomed the rest. We were pretty beat by then and we knew we had tons more to go. We took the fun little subway over again which is one of my favorite things about the tour:

 Taking the Senate Subway is the best!

 We got the same tour I had almost but the Rotundra was closed for the renovations which was a bummer. But with Rachel's credentials we discovered we could go into a whole new wing we had never been in before! So cool!!

The Senate Appropriations room!

Restoration in progress

 It was so cool being back there and as you can see not very many people got to go back there.

 After we finished up there the three of us went to the Library of Congress so Christina could see that.
It's so beautiful there.

 The Reading room...next time I am going to get in there with my super cool Library of Congress card!

 We all toured Jefferson's library in our own way!

 Rachel and Christina trying to imitate the wallpaper scenes was pretty hilarious.
It's lucky we didn't get thrown out.

They had opened a room that was closed previously too so that was cool to see. After we finished there we hopped the Metro or maybe crawled is a better description and went to Crystal City to meet up with Jeff for dinner. We thought it would be great to go to Buffalo Wild Wings and relax. Clearly we weren't thinking clearly. Our waiter was SOOOOO bad. He was pretty rude and our food took an eternity. Luckily we got out of there without actually killing anyone so I felt pretty good about that. We felt like we deserved a reward after that so we went to Cold Stone too.

I feel like I have to prove how hard I worked that day!