our first VA visitors

Last weekend brought us our first visitors to virginia!

Yay! Nick, Mike, Barb and Brooke drove in on friday morning. They had been driving all night long so after some chatting and tony's waffles ( yum) mike and nick took a nap, and although we didn't need one, barb, tony and i took a nap too..o meanwhile, brooke was bored :) and watching her dvd of three's company!

once we woke up, i made my famous french onion soup. well it's famous in some circuits :) we ate a little and then the boys headed out to get some wings at hooters, while brooke, barb and i walked to the movies near our place. we saw night at the museum.. it was cute and fitting, since we were planning on hitting the natural history museum the next morning..

we came home, had some hot cocoa and waited for the boys to come home.

Saturday morning started out a little brisk, but we made or way into the city with scarves and hats ( only to be greeted later on in the afternoon by 50 degree weather.) We started off slow because there was a huge mass of people headed into d.c for the anti war march...lots and lots of people that didn't know how to work the metro fare system, so they just stoof there looking at it and holding up the line...

but once we got on the train and into the city we started off for the smithsonian museum of air and space... we initially went there because they were holding parts of the american history museum there while it was undergoing renovations, however the air and space part of the museum was really a lot more interesting than i thought it would be..

here are some highlights of what we got to see :

the real spirit of st. louis, parts of bombs from WWI and WWII, things that were used in the initial and following space explorations..

from the american history museum, we got to see KERMIT THE FROG!!! the ruby red slippers, prince's guitar, one of patsy cline's outfits, custers jacket-with blood stains, abe lincoln's hat, washington's most known outfit, tito fuente's drum, the signpost from m*a*s*h , archie bunker's chair, mr. roger's sweater ( i covet it) oh there was so many more exciting pieces of history, i wish the museum would be open before we leave here, but it doesn't look like it.

after we left there, we went to the natural history museum. we went to see the hope diamond and a star ruby that was like 14 carats...we let brooke run the show since she got out of school a few days to come see us, we thought we outta let her learn something on her trip :)

after the museum we headed to the washington monument, but no one wanted to walk the additional block to get tickets to get the the top ( it is 555 feet tall built of pieces of stone from all 50 states, plus stones from other nations, and then covered in marble) so we looked at it and that was about it..

next we walked to the white house and got some photos, also some great photos of the armed men that work on top of the white house!! i am not that naive, but i never knew they were there until my first trip there...

we finished taking a million photos and then made our way back home.

where nick and i taught brooke how to play rummy...she beat us the first game!!!

the next day was rainy in the afternoon so we went to the mall trying to find some dc shirts, they didn't have brooke's size at any of the shops in dc. but no luck at the mall either!

later on that night we went to the city to walk around the monuments. we started with the vietnam memorial..then on to the lincoln's memorial...he is huge!! 28 feet tall!! next we walked over the WWII memorial, lastly onto the washington monument...well mike, nick, tony and brooke went there, barb and i sat in the car and warmed up a bit!!!

we went home to play some more rummy and off to bed ( later than we wanted)

i think the kids planned on leaving earlier than they did, but they ended up leavein gon monday about noonish.boo, we missed them as soon as they left!

Hope they had a good time.. now i can't wait to get back home to michigan for another visit!