Adventure to the East: Days 1 and 2

It all began with a humble offer from Anya's adoring small-group teacher at school. An experienced mom of 5 whose youngest is 16.

"Any time you would like to take a break and go spend some quality bonding time with your older kids, I'd love to stay with your younger ones. In fact, I would be honored."

I knew that was an offer that I would only be willing to redeem if I knew she was very serious about it.

"I'm serious about my offer.," she reminded me the next few times I saw her. Every time I said, “Are you sure??” She would say “I told you…I’m completely honored.”

What a sweet friend. I'm still so humbled that someone would sacrifice a week of their lives in this way. Truly.

I knew that our children would be in the best hands. Dawn loves children and has been blessed abundantly with the gift of patience. She is one of those people who sees the best qualities in children and she gets in there and plays with them.

(We asked G&G Fillmore if they would be willing to give Dawn a break one of the weekends. They were so sweet to come spend the first Saturday through Monday with the kids. We're so grateful to them, as well.)

As the summer grew near, we thought about where we wanted to go. Maybe Lake Powell with cousins, maybe California? We started doing some research and we realized that we had enough Delta miles and credit card points from Jeremy's business purchases to take six of us anywhere in the U.S. This was HUGE! 

Landon, Max and I have always wanted to see Washington, DC. Sadie has always wanted to go to NYC. And Jeremy and I have always wanted to take our children to see the LDS church history sites in Palmyra, NY. So we decided to take advantage of this offer from Dawn and our free airline tickets and see it all! We chose the very first week of summer break so that it would still be cool enough and the kids back east would still be in school. It turned out to be a perfect time to go!

There’s SO much to see along the East Coast, and when you only have 9 days to see it all, it’s hard to decide which things to choose. But we finally came up with an itinerary. We would fly from SLC to DC, stay there 3 days, then take a bus to NYC, stay there 3 days, then rent a car and drive upstate, and spend our last 2 days there. So sad we didn’t have time for Philadelphia (which is right on the way from DC to NYC!) or Boston. If only…
 

Can I just tell you how excited we were for this trip? We were all. so. excited. Jeremy needed a break from work. I needed a change of scenery and some peace and quiet for a few days. And Landon, Sadie, Max and Bennett needed some quality time with Mom and Dad, uninterrupted by loud, demanding little’s. (We love them dearly. But let’s face it…a break does us all some good some times.)

Max and Bennett had never flown before (or at least not in their memory) so just the thought of flying sent butterflies to their tummies. This is something that kids in big families rarely get to do.

We knew this trip was a rare privilege and we thanked the Lord every day in our prayers.

(Side note: We left our good camera home on purpose because we knew it would be too big to carry around everywhere. Please excuse the so-so quality of these photos.)

Day 1: Friday, June 2

5:00 pm Leave SLC

11:00 pm arrive in Washington, DC.

We missed the last hotel shuttle by just a few minutes. Bummer.

Guess we'll have to take a cab.

Our first hotel was a Marriott Residence Inn in Arlington, VA. We had to get two rooms because they only allowed 3 people per room in this hotel. We were all so hungry when we arrived, we ordered a pizza at midnight! Did it ever taste good. 

Next morning: A hotel shuttle ride to the metro station. Time to figure all this out! This will be our mode of transportation while we’re here! We were a bit disappointed to learn that the subways aren’t exactly cheap to ride. It cost us almost $100 just to get around in DC for 3 days. Cheaper than a cab, though!

Our first stop after getting off the Metro: The National Mall on the way to the National Air and Space Museum.

We were glad it was air conditioned. It was 90 degrees and humid. Being from the desert, we’re kind of wimpy in humidity!

Next Stop: The US Botanical Gardens. But not until we stop to eat our snacks

and watch Landon try to get a squirrel to eat out his hand.

Keep on walking, kids.

What’s that? You’re hot and sweaty and your feet are tired? Ah, we’ve only begun!

Now for a stop at the National Museum of Art.

We all crashed on some chairs for a few minutes when we entered the building. 

OK, enough of this serious stuff. After about 45 minutes, we decided we needed some food and a foot break. The water felt amazing!

Sadie and Bennett were most fascinated by the gem collection. Sadie’s favorite unit in her 8th grade science class this past term was the rock and mineral one. And Bennett collects rocks. Whenever he sees rocks with little crystals in them, he takes them home. There were a whole lot of crystals in this museum!

After our afternoon at the Museum of Natural History, we were ready to go back to the hotel and relax. To save money, we stayed in Arlington, VA, which was a short metro ride over the river from the National Mall area.

I think we all enjoyed the evenings the very most during this trip. There’s something about twilight that puts everyone in a good mood. Especially if it’s been a hot day.

When we got back to the hotel, the boys went for a dip in the pool and Sadie and I lounged out on the deck area by the pool on some patio chairs. Both of us quickly fell asleep and probably slept for an hour! We were so pooped!

This wrestling match took place at 10:30 pm. I was just waiting for the front desk clerk to call and tell us they had complaints from other guests.

Landon  (who incidentally hates having his picture taken) was mad that I didn’t get any shots of when he actually had his dad under him. It only lasted a few seconds… hee hee.

It won’t be long before he’ll be taking Dad out, though. He already weighs more…

All I can do is smile when I think of this trip. It was so full of good times. It's funny how you forget about all the whining and bickering that goes on and you just remember the good stuff. :)

I have to break this up into daily posts because there are so many pictures from 9 days of sight-seeing. Blogging all of this is going to take some time! To be continued…