Yankee Doodle went to town riding in a minivan.

Every once in a while I ask my husband to do unreasonable things.  Most of the time he spoils me and goes along with it because he knows deep down inside that I am right...and much happier when I am indulged in my delusional requests.  We took advantage of this three day weekend (actually four for us since the girls had Tuesday off as well) to drive down to Washington DC for family pictures.  This isn't the first time we have driven far away to get our pictures done.  About 3 1/2 years ago we made the lengthy 2 1/2 hour trip from Houston to Austin so my friend Kristen could take our pictures...Needless to say, I am willing to drive to fully take advantage of these people that I love and that also happen to be really talented photographers.  Those pictures that Kristen took have been THE pictures used for nearly everything in the last several years.  My main objective in getting these pictures taken was 1) to have an updated record of what we all look like when we are all mostly happy at the same time and 2) to use in all sorts of books and things for Clark's deployments.  So, it was time again.  Time for an update...afterall, someday I will want to remember that Hazel did indeed become a member of our family somewhere in 2008.
Before I get to the good stuff, aka us immortalized for all of eternity on film, I have to cover the car trip.  Fortunately, we live on the same coast as my brother and lovely sister in law who have recently started their own photography business.  UN-fortunately, this coast is pretty long, and there are several rather large cities between us = traffic.  Nevertheless, it is totally do-able, and since the last time we drove it I was alone with the girls, this time was a breeze.  It should take 6, but typically takes more like 8 or 9 hours.

As we got into the car I took out my notebook and clicked my pen, poised and ready to keep a tally of how many times Mia said "Momma....Dadda..." or asked a question.  When we were 15 minutes into the trip, with approximately 37 "Momma's",  23 "Dadda's" and 26 questions, I gave up.  It wasn't a really fun game after all.  I DID however, get the notebook back out for our drive home so I could keep track of how many bottles of pee were along the road between the last toll booth and the George Washington bridge in NYC.  Apparently, a lot of people lose all bladder control on that portion of the road where there is always a backup of traffic.  Oh and just in case you really wanted to know, they stopped counting after 16.  And since the DVD player in the car fell out of the ceiling a few months ago, we had to make the trip fun by talking to each other and coloring and reading and being nice.  We ate sunflower seeds and chewed Hubba Bubba.  We ate at Chick Fil A three times on this trip because they don't have it in CT and I am pretty sure that I need it to survive.  We even got off the the freeway and ventured into downtown Philly where I ran into a mall and found the food court when we realized it was the last one on our trip North.  I have hoarded and saved every last extra packet of their Honey Roasted BBQ sauce in my kitchen and I won't ever tell you were it is, not ever.  Someday soon Clark may or may not awaken in the middle of the night to find me rocking in bed next to him, slurping it right out of the packet and licking it off of my fingers.  I think I actually slapped his hand when he reached over the other morning and tried to snag one of my hash browns...I apologized and assured him that it was a innate response and I didn't mean to hurt him but I would if he ever tried a stunt like that again, by golly.
We are never there long enough to see everything we want to see and to hang out and play games with them.  It is a good time and Sho and Spencer are good sports to put all six of us up in their adorable one bedroom apartment.  Somehow the girls always fall asleep and we are able to play and laugh and eat delicious Korean chicken in the very same room as them, late into the night.
Sometimes it is hard to come home from a fun visit with people and places that you adore to pieces...but even as we ran into the gas station for a potty emergency a mere 40 minutes from home, I realized how glad I was to be back.  That I love where we live.  That I love the people and the weather, the trees and the seasons. It made me grateful for every place that we have ever lived and all the many things that I have been able to appreciate about them all.  I even love that Connecticut's state song is Yankee Doodle...for real, the one about the pony, feather and the noodle.  Deep inside these seemingly crusty New England exteriors, these people are generous, personable and a little silly (even though I am pretty sure that the state song has meaning and is not actually intended as a joke.)

For some reason, when we visit Spencer and Sho I neglect to fully document everything we do with my own camera.  I figure that he is taking awesome pictures so why even bother? But then I get home and wish that I had taken more.

I have lots and lots of pictures of Hazel running away from us.  This is outside the Smithsonian Museum of Modern Art.

 

This is Abs making her own modern art while playing in the grass.

 

Somehow the kids actually walked the length of the national mall (not the whole thing but a pretty fair amount of it) and we ended up at the beautiful Capital Building.  Sho and Abby were the only family members to be found at this point.  Run up the stairs, run down the stairs, run up the stairs, run down the stairs.  The fun never ends.

 

We played games until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore (aka midnight when my internal clock goes through a power surge and actually shuts off.) They tried their best to keep us awake with rousing games of Starfarers of Catan and Take Two...and root beer floats.

 

The last day we were there we hit Annapolis on our way out of town.  We hadn't been back since Haley and Abby were really little.  It is so fun to walk around the yard and remember those days of young love, exciting engagements and little responsibility.  These rocks are one of the places that we took engagement pictures 10 years ago.

Man, Annapolis is cool.

 

Little sailors in training on T Court.

 

The inside of every building is amazing and beautiful.  It is old and ornate and full of meaningful things.  I love this one so much that I think I might have to embroider it on a few pillows...or fly a banner in my kitchen.

 

And then we played on some of the meaningful things.

Haley brushed up on her Marine Navigation.

And then we came home and I changed my blog banner to my favorite picture taken all weekend.  It was after the absolute last straw, Clark had stripped away the confines of his uniform that I made him wear, each of the girls had successfully completed a mini meltdown of sorts, and then the silly hats started to appear and suddenly the band was back together again for one last great hit.  And it was the best of the bunch.

Stay tuned for more family photos from our weekend in our Nation's Capital!