Epic DC Vacation - Days 5 & 6 aka the finale

After a late night on the 4th of July (fireworks were going off all night!) we decided to take Friday easy.  We slept in and then enjoyed a leisurely morning getting ready and enjoying time together.  My parents and brothers went to the DC temple and in the afternoon, Dustin and I headed into town to meet up with Andrea.
We met up at the National Gallery of Art and enjoyed mimicking some famous art pieces.

Andrea the Thinker

Van Gogh's dancer

Don't worry, Dustin kept his clothes on for the pose

We enjoyed some delicious fro-yo from a fro-yo truck before heading on the metro down to Georgetown.
My family met us at the metro stop to Georgetown and we took a taxi to Mai Thai for some super yummy Thai food.
Next stop was cupcakery heaven!  Nathan and Elliott went ahead to scope out Georgetown Cupcakes and the line was outta control.  So we skipped Georgetown Cupcakes and stopped at Serendipity for some frozen hot chocolates.

 

Then we enjoyed Baked and Wired Cupcakes (our number one favorite cupcakes of DC!) at the waterfront park while Mr. Elliott ran in the fountains.

DC's best cupcakes - Baked and Wired

 

We hiked back to the Metro passing Sprinkles Cupcakes but decided to pass those up (sadly).

Saturday the 6th was our final day in DC.  We ventured into the city for some final site seeing.
Old Ebbitt Grill is the oldest restaurant in DC, where we enjoyed a tasty brunch. 

 

The White House was just a hop skip and a jump away and we got to take a picture in the Oval Office!

 

The First Couple

Ok, so we weren't really in the Oval Office, it was a White House gift shop that lets you take a free pic with any purchase, but we thought we make a great First Couple. ;)
We made sure to stop at one last cupcakery on the way home-- and ran into some missionaries on the way! There was a fro-yo shop right next to Hello Cupcake so we bought them a cool treat on a hot DC day. 

 

Final cupcakes were purchased and we headed home to pack up our stuff and head to the airport.

It was such a fun trip and there are so many things we didn't get to see.  We know we will be back!
Thanks Nathan and Adrienne for hosting an epic summer vacation!!

Epic DC Vacation -- Day 3

Wednesday was packed full of fun!

 

We started the morning with a tour of the Capitol building.  It was a really cool tour!  Our tour guide was a spunky UVU student who reminded me a lot of our cousin Amber.  By the end of the tour Elliott and Audrey were fairly bored.

Dustin with Brother Brigham- Utah's man!

Elliott was not very amused by the Capitol tour.

We grabbed some lunch at the Capitol building and then walked over to the Archives.  On the way we lost Elliott's pour nini (binky) and Dustin was the hero running back to the Capitol to find it.  And he was successful! 
Thank goodness my mom made us reservations at the Archives because we were able to skip a looooong line of people waiting to get in! 

We let Elliott try out a phone recording at the We The People exhibit and realized he probably didn't know that this was a phone! 

We tried getting Elliott to fall sleep and finally had success at the end of the Archives so we decided to check out the Natural History Smithsonian.  holy. big. museum!  It was another quick walk through trying to see everything in a short time frame.

 

Wednesday night Nathan, Adrienne, Dustin and I went to the DC temple for an endowment session.  We love to see the Temple!  It was very beautiful!

 We also love to see Cafe Rio and miss it living in Oregon!  Good news-- Washington DC has a Cafe Rio!  So we knew it was a must-have when we were out there. 

I'm pretty sure we ended the night with a late night movie with everyone back at home.  Probably Pitch Perfect.  Which is hilarious and everyone loved. 

To be continued....

Epic DC Vacation Days 1 & 2

This year's epic vacation was a trip to Washington DC over 4th of July week to see Nathan and Adrienne and kids.  We had so much fun! It was such an exhausting trip!

It started with a red-eye flight from Portland to DC.  We had a quick layover in Minnesota, enough time to grab some breakfast and board the next flight.  Flying in to Minnesota watching the sunrise was a really cool experience!

A pretty sunrise out the plane window

Such fluffy clouds!  "These clouds are so fluffy, I'm gonna die!"

We looked pretty ghetto fabulous.  No surprise coming from Portland :)

Once landing in DC we grabbed our luggage and hopped on the Metro to the Jack's house in the Stadium-Armory neighborhood.  Mr. Elliott was down for a nap so we chilled with Audrey and tried to put her down for a nap so we could put ourselves down for a nap.  Of course this meant that as soon as Audrey was down, Elliott woke up.  :) We tried to spoil these kids with some new 4th of July outfits and toys.  (sorry Adrienne, I stole some pics of your cute kids from your blog)

Elliott's new hat

Audrey's 4th of July outfit

Elliott's baseball pjs and Audrey's new hat

Elliott is WAY into trucks so we busted out a new set of CAT trucks.  We loved having Elliott "read" his truck books because he is able to name all of the different kinds of heavy machinery.  And I mean ALL of them!

Audrey had a fun time playing under her toys.  Note, we did not bring her this toy. haha

That night we braved the metro with 2 kids and met Nathan and Adrienne in downtown DC for some pizza from Matchbox.  It's a really good thing Nathan found us at the Metro Center station because we had no idea how to get out!  We spent the night chillin and catching up.

Audrey loved Dustin!  Best buds!

Tuesday we were still pretty exhausted due to the previous day's red eye flight and the jet lag.  I didn't think 3 hours time difference would be that bad, but man, we were tired!  We spent the morning playing with Elliott and Audrey and then in the afternoon (after naps!) we went to the Air and Space Smithsonian.
Exploring Smithsonians with a 2 year old means that you just walk quickly through all the exhibits and point out the different colors of planes and such.  Hahaha.  Elliott was excited by the planes and we had a good time. 

Nathan and Adrienne joined us at the Smithsonian and we headed home to make some dinner and watch some Bachelorette before my family's flight got in that night.  Then the party started all over again!  My mom, dad, Spencer, and Evan joined in on the epic DC vacation with us.

To be continued...

Lincoln City

For our anniversary trip and Dustin's break between quarters, we took a little weekend trip to Lincoln City over Easter weekend.

The best way to start a road trip is with an ice cold Sonic (not available in Portland, which is what makes it so exciting!)

We stayed in the exact same room that we stayed in last year, which I loved because it's the jacuzzi room. :)

We spent some great time relaxing at the beach, shopping the outlet, and eating good food.  On Saturday we went on a whale watching boat tour down in Depoe Bay.  It was so cool!  We hadn't seen Life of Pi yet, but I felt like the moment when the whale jumps over the small raft.  Of course it wasn't that dramatic, but it was really cool to be boating right next to a pod of 6-8 whales.  I got soaked on the way out from the Bay. SOAKED.  Good thing it was nice weather and I could laugh about it.

It's a whale! And we're so close to it!

Being at the beach felt like a little piece of heaven.  After such a crazy time at work it was a much needed getaway!

Epic Vacation

*Warning: A million pictures are in this post!  Because of that, I am giving a rough overview of the week and then a million pictures!*
For Memorial Day weekend, we went on an EPIC vacation with our good friends from the ward Nate and Yolanda Stanford with their 5 kids and Brittany.
We stayed down in Bandon, Oregon which is SOUTHERN Oregon coast.  Dustin and I drove with Brittany and completed our journey along the entire Oregon coast by driving from Lincoln  City down into California.  Our trip down we stopped at some lighthouses, a cool place called Devil's Churn, and the sea lion caves.  It was an all day drive starting at 8 AM but we made it to Bandon in time for dinner and swimming at the pool.
Sunday we woke up bright and early to visit the West Coast Game Park walk through Safari which is a long title for "coolest zoo ever."  You get to pet the baby animals!  We got to pet a black panther, black bear, lion, and fox.  There were goats and peacocks and deer and llamas just walking around and pooping everywhere.  Hahaha, yep, it's true, the word of the trip was "poop" based on all the poop we found everywhere.  Guess that's what happens when you mix free roaming animals and children's vocabulary!
After the coolest zoo ever, Brittany, Dustin and I headed down the rest of the Oregon coast into California to visit the Jedediah Smith State Park which is a park with REDWOODS.  They were so awesome!  So awe-inspiring.  I felt like I was walking through a super high-def movie as it was so surreal. You really felt so small while hiking among the giant trees!  Sunday night was spent with a fancier dinner and more swimming!
Monday morning we hit the beach in Bandon and it was awesome!  Tide pools, mussels, and star fish galore!  I ventured out into the water about knee high, but most of our time was exploring the tide pools.  The kids had so much fun pulling the poor star fish off the rocks.  Dustin and I carefully relocated them back on so hopefully they are okay!  The afternoon we explored a little Old Town Bandon starting with the Cranberry Sweets shop- where they have free samples of just about all of their candies!  We felt pretty sick after our samplings, especially since Dustin and I haven't been eating a lot of sugar lately.  Then it was the drive back home, which was much shorter driving straight back and not along the coast.
It was a great weekend and a fun getaway! 
 Now pictures!

 Yaquina Bay lighthouse

 View from Yaquina Bay lighthouse

 Dustin at Devil's Churn.  We climbed all over these rocks and it was cool to see the waves splash up against the rocks.

 From the top of Devil's Churn after hiking back up

 Sea Lion Caves

 Can you see the Sea Lions?  They are BIG.

 Another lighthouse.  Don't remember which one...

Dustin driving the boat!

Petting the baby black panther

Baby Black panther

A goat was fond of Brittany's jacket and kept trying to nibble it.

Amery with a little baby goat.  She loved it!

Petting the baby black bear with Daxton and Brigham

Dustin and one of the many peacocks!  Which were sometimes scary cuz they would kinda charge you.

Amery and Brigham petting the camel

Petting the baby fox

Albino ferret

The Stanford kids.  Brigham's (in the middle) face is my favorite.  So Brigham

Brittany and Dustin petting the baby lion

Dustin and the llama

Dustin inside a Redwood.  This was a little one.  Hahaha

The base of a fallen Redwood.  Look how big it is!

Stretching out as far as we can

Very tall. Pictures can't even portray the beauty of these trees

Just to get a little perspective- Brittany is that tiny dot at the bottom of the tree in the middle.  Can you find her?

Brittany and the beach.  So excited!

We found a little sand crab.

Tide pools

Star Fish!

Dustin found a little cave

It was kinda bright... don't mind me squinting like crazy.

The beach!

So happy!

Amery and the star fish

Little crab

Lincoln's haul.  He's holding three star fish here.. that we hopefully put back on okay...

The sun started to come out!

Yolanda, Brianne, and Brittany.  Great friends!

Such a pretty view!

Old Town Bandon- The Flying Pig.  Thought it was funny and cute. :)

Me and Brigham- my adopted son.  He is one crazy kid!

Good vacation!