DC Diary: Day 1

Later this summer,  next month to be exact, we will embark on another military moving adventure. This one sends us east to our nation's capital! Now, I love Washington, DC but other than taking the Metro (intra-city subway) for touring purposes when I was 15 years old, I can't say that I know my way around the area.

So my mission for the next six days (why yes, I have chosen to accept it) is to fly out there- no kids, no husband- and spend some time getting to know the lay of the land and look at potential homes.

I have spent the past month preparing for this by hyperventilating into a paper bag when I look at the prices of homes in "NOVA" (northern Virginia).

Proverbs 31 states, in various verses, that "The heart of her husband trusts in her", as well as something about "consider[ing] a field and buying it", so I guess that makes me a Proverbs 31 wife?????

Anyhow. Day one unfolds with a pretty typical breakfast at home. I get around to packing about an hour before I needed to leave 'cuz when you don't need to pack diapers, wipes, and changes of clothes for four boys who like to get messy packing takes no time at all.

I close my suitcase that I dragged up from the basement, and realize it's the one held together with duct tape. There is some dispute over who is responsible for this dreadful state of affairs. It could be me since I grabbed that luggage. It could be another member of the household who at times flies regularly on temporary assignments, taking that bag with him, and is too cheap to replace it.  But back to the point: There's no disguising it; it's a solid black suitcase with silver duct tape all over it. It couldn't be black and discreetly blend in where only the baggage handlers and I would notice, and it couldn't be awesome tape with leopard print, paisleys, or Justin Bieber (JUST KIDDING on the last one, although such tape does exist). Sigh.

Off to the Omaha airport we head; the boys and Ryan opted just to drop me off at the terminal. That was just as well as my airline and TSA are the models of inefficiency today.

My flight leaves  about an hour and twenty minutes late but I make it to O'Hare in Chicago with about 15 minutes to catch my connecting flight. I really need to start running again. I land at Dulles airport right on time; it's a little larger than I had imagined but I found the subway to the baggage claim and the shuttle to the rental car lot with no trouble.

The hardest part about finding my hotel, being that it is only about seven miles from the airport, is heading west into the sunset. The overhead signs are accurate and helpful I am sure, but not when the sun is a great big blazing ball right behind them. But I arrive safely with some daylight to spare. Tomorrow I am going to sleep in very late and then go drive around and get lost so I can find my way back and thus learn my way around.

Recent Travels

We have been on the road a LOT the past two months. Since Valentine's Day, we spent three days at Great Wolf Lodge, about ten at my mom's place, and just returned from an eight-day trip to Georgia and back. Let's see... that's roughly 21 days out of the last 42.Whew! Here are some photos from the last two trips.

Fun at Grandma's Farm:

Here are a couple of pictures I snapped of the boys at the farm, when they were climbing up the hay stack.

Ethan enjoyed climbing as high as he could go!

Andrew is never far behind, of course!

They both discovered a tunnel between some of the bales.
Ethan made friends with one of Grandma's goats, Moonshadow. They had this game they played almost every day:

A surprise for Mom: My brother and I painted her room! Now, this project turned out to be much, much more involved than either of us anticipated, but we transformed the room from a dreadful shade of early 1970's teal blue to a peaceful cream with white trim. I WISH I had taken a "before" picture!!!

Sunset in the country
Off to Mama Nelle and Papa's

I didn't really take a lot of still pictures this trip, but I did get a snapshot of these two "berry" handsome young men after we picked some strawberries.

We also visited Mark's Melon Patch, where we bought some gourds to make birdhouses, saw the zoo at Cheehaw Park, went to an aquarium, and spent a LOT of time swinging in the backyard.

It was the perfect week to visit! Ohio is still pretty dreary, although we've had the occasional glimpse of spring; springtime in southern Georgia is in full swing with azaleas, dogwoods, wisteria, and all other kinds of beautiful flowers. And it was so nice to just let the kids run around in shorts and T-shirts all day!

Ryan's mom and I got to go to a craft fair that I always enjoy, yet haven't had a chance to see in a few years. Meanwhile, the kids stayed home with Ryan and Papa and planted a garden. Fun!

Best of all, we had an entire week to just visit and play.