A Vacation in Photos

Almost all of these were taken by my amazing husband Steve - except for any of the two of us together - Jess takes those for us.
Our family vacation to Washington, DC lasted less than a week.  We arrived Saturday afternoon and left early Thursday morning.  In those few days we covered a LOT of ground!

Arlington was Ben's 'must see' and it was a moving experience for all of us.

The street where we stayed in Columbia Heights

Ice cream on the front steps.  It was summer in DC already!

Library of Congress was Jessica's 'must see'

Supreme Court

Mount Vernon - a great morning out here that even included a cruise on the Potomac

Me and my girl

Me and my boy

National Cathedral - amazing!

Back from Vacation

We're back!  Not that most people even knew we were gone... which is, of course, on purpose. :-)

We took the kids down to DC for almost a week and came back yesterday afternoon.  It was VERY nice for all of us to sleep in our own beds last night!

The photo is of a hand-painted replica of part of a stained glass window in the National Cathedral, which may have been one of the high points of the trip for me.  What a beautiful and amazing place!

Once I have more photos pulled together, I will post a bunch and tell some stories about our trip.  It was a great vacation and a nice capstone event to our school year for the kids.  Hard to believe we are now heading straight into summer vacation!  Woot!

Blessings on the journey~

Getaway

It is always nice to get away... and sometimes I wish we could stay away longer!

 

Ocean Vacation

We've been on vacation!
I love that we have the blessing of being able to take our children on family vacations.  We did that only very rarely when I was a child (once when I was 10 or so and not again until high school). 
I don't feel deprived about it or have any negative feelings around it.  I didn't know anyone who went away on vacations when I was a kid.  Dads worked, sometimes Moms too, we kids went to school, played outside after school and during summer vacations.  Normal kid life. :-)
We have taken some of our children on vacations far away (A went to NV/AZ/UT when he was 5) and all 3 went to FL a few times.  Normally our trips are pretty local - within a few hours drive.  Our most favorite vacation spot so far is Acadia.  We drive the 4-5 hours up to Maine, camp, play around in the ocean, hike and sight see in the National Park, noodle around in the shops and eat ice cream. It's great!

This year we did something different.  We have never done this before.  We rented a cottage right on the point - right on the water.  It's gorgeous and we love it. 
I think camping is going to be really a challenge after this experience. :-)