Washington D.C. Part Two

Friday was our day to see the White House! I was so excited our congresswoman was able to secure a tour of the inside. 

Riding the metro over.

Stopped for a quick photo at the FBI building. 

On the tour. The guards were so helpful and answered all the boys' questions! :)

I had previously booked tickets to go up the Washington Monument that ended up being at the same time as our White House tour. The guards at the monument were so helpful and let us go up even though we were late!

We met back up with mom, who didn't want to go up the Washington Monument and instead went back to our airbnb to get our bags (since we couldn't take anything into the White House). We walked around some of the other sites like the World War II Memorial and then got lunch at some food trucks before going to the American History Museum. 

For dinner that night the boys and mom got Mr. Beast Burger (another internet sensation that Dave was super excited about) and the rest of us went out to eat at a great Italian restaurant called Sfoglina. 

We came back to find the kids and mom engrossed in another game of Exploding Minions. 

For our last day in DC, it was a little rainy, so we hopped on the metro to go to a couple of museums. First stop was the Museum of Natural History, which Ike was very excited for!

There's a whole section of the museum dedicated to rocks, minerals, meteors, etc. He was in heaven. 

Dave really liked the section on Egypt, but it was pretty small unfortunately.

We busted out our ponchos to go grab some lunch at Shake Shack before it was time for our Library of Congress viewing. 

The Library of Congress was really cool. Wish we could have gotten the tickets to go in and browse the books, but we were able to go to the children's section at least and get a view from up top!

We capped off the trip with some more games and then went to visit the Watermelon House which was about a block away!

 

Such a fun trip to share with the boys. Definitely glad we waited until they were older to go...we saw lots of young families and that just didn't look like nearly as much fun! Dave's favorite part of the vacation was seeing the White House and Capitol Building. Ike's favorite part was the geode section of the Natural History Museum and white water rafting!

Washington D.C. Part One

 We left West Virginia fairly early on Wednesday to head to D.C. This was Dave's main part of the trip, he (and all of us!) was so excited to see everything DC had to offer. Mom left before us to pick up Tony and Ben from the airport, then we all at Arlington Cemetery and ate lunch. 

We spent a little over an hour walking around Arlington. Saw the changing of the guards, JFK and Jackie's gravesites and some others. It was super hot that afternoon so we were looking to go have a cool glass of water and some lunch after this. 

Lunch was at Duke's Grocery, just a little bit away from our VRBO we stayed at. It was super great, my sandwich especially!

Kids in front of our home for the rest of the week.

Thursday morning started off rainy, so we waited it out then headed in to the main part of the city.

First time on the metro for the kids!

First stop was the National Archives. We really had a great visit, and we got to get in super fast and first because of mom's veteran status.

Next up was a tour of the Capitol that I had set up with my local congresswoman. One of her interns took us on a great tour, super informative. 

The Hawaiian state statue was the kids' favorite. 

We were all hungry after this so we headed to China Town to find something to eat. We ended up at Nando's Peri Peri because Dave is kind of obsessed with watching people eat food on YouTube and this is famous on that!

Next up was the Portrait Gallery, we wanted to see all the presidents! And it was close by :)

I loved the one of JFK.

We went back to our house, rested for a bit and had some dinner, then hit the road again to see the monuments at night. Mom decided to skip this one, we'd had a long day already!

Started off at the Washington Monument.

Then over to the Jefferson Memorial. 

Looped around to the FDR and Martin Luther King Jr. memorials. 

And finished up at the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Memorial. We saved the WWII Memorial for during the day later in the trip. 

We had a jam-packed first couple of days but we got a lot done in a short amount of time! 

Ocean Isle Beach-Part 3

While on vacation we intended to have professional pictures taken of the family. Unfortunately the photographer we booked was very sick while we were in town, so I busted out my trusty tripod and diy-ed it! A little bit of amateur editing later and here are our pictures!

Ike's face-showing his crazy personality!

I think they turned out pretty good considering! I was happy to get everybody looking at the camera!


Now back to the rest of our trip. We spent A LOT of time in the ocean due to the extreme heat that was happening while we were there. When the heat index is in the high 90s, you don't have much choice other than to get in! I was super paranoid about rip currents so the kids had to wait patiently for an adult to go in the water with them. So they were happy it was hot and we wanted to get in a bunch! I have only one picture of people in the water-

Gamma was a trooper and went out with them a lot!

Ike getting ready for the beach version of Chopped.

Contestant Dave with his judges.

They had a cook-off and were explaining how they used their "ingredients".

So much Fortnite dancing. Here's a video, they are going to love that this is on the internet when they're older!











Mom and I took the kids to the Museum of Coastal Carolina, which was right on Ocean Isle Beach. It was great and a perfect size for the kids.

Checking out the shark jaws.

This was like a life-size diorama. Pretty cool.

Holding live starfish.

Waiting for the shark talk to start. Very informative and the kids loved it.

We got to see lots of sea turtle nests on our walks.













Whenever we got to the community pool, everyone always left once we were in. Pretty sure that was due to the rambunctious children that came with us! Dave brought his basketball hoop and there was a lot of dunking going on!

Getting his orders from great-grandpa.

Buckets.

Slush on the beach every day! We waited not very patiently for the cart to come by.

I spotted a deer on the beach on our last night.
















One last picture on the morning we left.












We had such a wonderful vacation and I can't thank grandpa enough for putting it all together for us! I'm hoping we can do another one next summer...maybe in a slightly cooler climate!