Weekend in Washington D.C.

Chad and I decided to take a couples get away before the new babe is born. Chad goes to D.C. every year for work and I have never been; he knows all the fun spots and knew his way around so well that we had a really fun time! We left early Friday morning and spent most of the day flying. I have the worse time flying because my ears don't always pop and my head feel like it is going to implode, we found these amazing things called EarPlanes, I tried them and they worked like a charm, they are my new best friend :)

We flew on United the whole way.

That night we stayed in Crystal City at the Hyatt, GORGEOUS!

This is the Lobby of our Hotel, wow!

This is a picture of our room, I got spoiled. It was so nice (thanks babe!)

We walked around the beautiful Crystal City for a while that night and stopped for dessert and then headed back to our room for the evening.

The next morning we got up bright and early and took the metro into D.C. to the mall area. On the way we saw the Arlington National Cemetary. When we got to the mall area we walked the loop and saw all the Monuments, the Capitol building, the Washington Monument; we saw the Jefferson Memorial across the water, we were there a week before the Cherry Blossom Festival and the trees were starting to bloom. We then headed over to the World War II Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial was amazing up so close.

Arlington National Cemetary

D.C. Metro

The Capitol Building

Chad and the Washington Monument

Jefferson Memorial and the Cherry Blossoms

World War II Memorial

Lincoln Memorial . Chad was getting tired of posing for all my pics.

We finished the morning up with some shopping and a visit to the Air and Space Smithsonian to take some cool pics. to show the kids when we got home.

After getting gifts for everyone, we headed back to Crystal City to get ready for Chad’s track meet. The meet was at the Prince George’s Sports and Learning Complex, it was a huge facility with a ton of activities going on, Chad did great, as always, especially considering he was still recovering from an injury. He dropped a 45 lb. weight on his toe a couple weeks before we left. I had a front row seat and got some good videos. I will try and download them later.

Prince George’s Sports and Learning Complex

After he was done competing we headed over to Old Alexandria for dinner and a trolley ride. We took the King Street Trolley down town to this amazing Italian restaurant called Bertuccis. It was sooooo good. Since I was getting a little tired from our day we hopped back on the Trolley to see the rest of down town, it was so pretty at night all lit up. The ride ended back at the metro and we headed back to Crystal City.
King Street Trolley in Old Alexandria

Yummy Italian food!!!

It was so fun to walk around downtown and look at all the cute shops, it was all lit up and just a beautiful night to walk around together.

When we got back to the Hyatt we were both pretty tired so we had a nice dessert in our Hotel at the Lobbibar and headed back up to our room for the night.

The next morning we slept in and packed to get ready to head home. It was such a fun weekend and fun to spend time together. We couldn't wait to get back to the kids though :)

St. Patrick's Day Fun

For St. Patrick’s Day this year I sprayed the boy’s hair GREEN. Little messy but they loved it; they were both dressed head to toe in green.










I didn’t even try to spray Carissa’s hair, way too messy for a two year old. She did pick out her green Dora shirt to wear and didn’t miss not having green hair like her brother’s at all.





CJ’s favorite color is green so he was more than excited to get all decked out for St. Patrick’s Day, they had some fun arts and crafts they made at school and they even had green eggs and ham. He didn’t try the eggs but he ate the ham.



















Quinn had a leprechaun visit his preschool, when we walked in we saw little green foot-prints all over. They left some magic beans for the kids to plant that grew into suckers! Quinn also got to make a really cute hat. When he got home we had to wash the green out because it was getting everywhere, he decided he wanted Sonic the Hedgehog hair, so we spiked it and put gel in it and he ran around as fast as Sonic for the rest of the day.

Family Prayer

This was too cute not to share. We were saying family prayers tonight and all the kids take turns to avoid fights. Quinn said his usual prayer and blessed everyone and everything he could think of until I had to cut him short so the other two could have turns. Carissa did her normal "Dear Heavenly Father, Amen" and then when it was CJ's turn he took his time and really thought about what he was saying, he was finishing up and said "bless the water in remembrance of the blood of thy Son, Amen." It was too sweet, they have been trying really hard to make their prayers more meaningful and it is so fun to hear what they think about. It is time like these that really strengthen my testimony of how important Scripture Study and Family Prayer is, even when it doesn't feel like they are paying attention or getting anything out of it, it is little things like their sweet little prayers that remind me just how important it really is and how they really are listening and building their own little testimonies.

It's a girl!!

Today we had an ultra-sound and we got some great pics.!!! We took all three kiddos with us and they had so much fun seeing their new little baby SISTER. The boys were rooting for a new little brother and Carissa told us we were having a baby gull (girl), they were all excited when the tech. told us we were having a little girl. She is healthy and beautiful, we are getting so excited for her to get here.

She was busy kicking around the whole time the tech. was trying to get measurements and all the info. he needed, but as soon as it was picture time she decided to take a nap and looked so sweet. This is the first 3D ultra-sound I have had, and it is so amazing to me how clear the pics. turned out!! We are still deciding on names, so right now she is baby.

Cake Raffle

Friday was the 5th grade cake raffle at the Elementary School, CJ asked for a dime so he could buy a ticket for the cake raffle, I gave him a dollar and told him he could buy 10 tickets, he insisted he only needed 1 dime. Chad and I finally talked him into buying a few more to up his odds a little and he ended up winning a cake! He was pretty excited, when he got home he told us we could all have some after dinner, it was yummy!