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 4 - Independence Day!

Day 4 was an all-American 4th of July in our nation's capitol!

We started the morning with a red white and blue pancake breakfast-- blueberry white chocolate chip pancakes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream (a B&D Creer creation).

Great seats!

A happy man!

Next up was a Nationals baseball game!  We met up with high school friends Andrea, Lacie, and Lacie's husband Chris and baby.  It was fun to catch up and see some great baseball!  Our seats were perfect and included hot dogs, fries, and drinks. Happy birthday America!

 

 After a Nationals victory, we headed to the Holocaust Museum.  Wow, what a museum!  I think this was my favorite museum out of all the ones we saw.  I wish we could have spent more time there before it closed but I'm sure we could have spent all day there and still wanted to stay.

The National Mall was our next stop with a long long loooong walk from the museum to Mr. Abraham Lincoln.  By the time we got there my feet were outta-control-sore so we found a spot at the base of Lincoln and waited for the firework show.  Dustin headed to a concession stand for a cold drink and maybe some sustenance and then he was gone... for a while. A very long while.  Actually, that's such a long story that I will save it for another post.

In the end, we ended up leaving Lincoln and started walking towards Washington Monument, where we saw fireflies! We were stopped by the cops as everything was closing for the fireworks so instead we found a nice spot on the grass by the Korean War memorial (maybe?).  The area was not crowded at all so it was so much better than the spot we had before!

I love how you can see the Washington Monument in these firework pics!

Happy Birthday America!

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...