Summer vacation 2009

This year was the first time in 3 1/2 years that we got to leave the state and go on a decent vacation. After finding an AMAZING deal for airfare ($148/person), we traveled to Washington DC for this year's vacation. We only went there because Elijah's dad and step-mom live there, and they were able to accomodate us for the week. It even turned out that his dad got that entire time off work, and his sister Jenn and her husband Jake ended up being there at the same time as well. It was great!Out trip started with a very curious Jacen trying to push buttons on the vending machines in front of our gate, while we waited an excruciating 2 hours to board the plane. When we had gotten to the airport we found out our plane was going to be late, and we were going to miss our plane in Dallas/Ft. Worth, so American Airlines was nice enough to get us a hotel room in Dallas overnight and vouchers for food. Although breaking the trip up in two parts was probably better for Jacen, I hated Texas. Those stupid bugs were too big, not to mention arriving at the wrong terminal and trying to get to the next one took 20 minutes on the shuttle, was just plain awful.

That was Elijah reading Mr. Brown Can Moo to Jacen on the plane. We got lucky and Jacen had his own seat when we hadn't paid for it. He was mostly good on the plane except for when it was his nap time and he was too interested in pushing the light buttons overhead.

Once we got to DC on wednesday afternoon, Terry (Elijah's dad) took us on a driving tour of DC. These pictures aren't great because they were taken from inside a moving vehicle, but they'll do for now. This was the Washington Monument and it was quite tall.

This is the 0.5 second view of the White House. The TV and cameras make it seem so big, but it's actually quite small. I was shocked and somehow disappointed...

And here's the Capitol Building. We took more pictures of it but this was the best one of them all. It was a big building, and much bigger than the White House!

On our way back home from our tour, they took us to see the Washington DC Temple. It was beautiful. It has caused many accidents on the freeway, apparently. It comes out of nowhere after the road curves and it shocks anyone who doesn't know what it is. And it's also a point of reference on the traffic portion of the news in the morning as well. The dots everywhere were from raindrops, just FYI.

On Thursday, we went to the American History Smithsonian. That place was so huge we were only able to tour half of it, and it still took us about 2-3 hrs. This C3PO is the actual costume worn for episode 6. I hate Star Wars, but I thought the costume was cool anyway.

This is a vest used by someone who survived the sinking of the Titanic. That was definitely something worth taking a picture of.

And I just had to take a picture of that coin. They also had a coin that was used here in Utah, called "Utah Mormons". It was worth $20 and it was from 1849.

Our last stop in the museum was to see the original USA flag. They keep it in a dark room chilled to 30F to preserve the fibers and it was so reverent in there. We were not allowed to take pictures or film it because the flash accelerated the deterioration of the flag.

On Saturday, we had yummy BBQ provided by Jake and Terry. We hung out at home and played games, then in the evening we ended up going somewhere nearby to watch a fireworks display. I originally wanted to go to DC and watch the fireworks there, but because they were expecting 1.2 million tourists to visit and were shutting all the streets down, it wouldn't have been a great place to drag Jacen to. So we opted for a fireworks display that was still bigger than anything I've seen here in Utah. I was quite impressed, and the place was packed!

On Sunday, we visited another one of the Smithsonians. This one is outside of DC and it was closer to where we were staying. This is the Air and Space Museum. The museum is placed in a hangar, and it's absolutely MASSIVE. The picture above is of Enterprise, which is a space shuttle. That thing was huge. And you can see the tiles they always talk about falling in space on the right side of the picture.

From all the airplanes in there, this one was the most interesting of them all (besides the SR-71 and the Indiana Jones plane). This is Enola Gay, which was the bomber that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and killed about 85,000 people. The guide was saying that the atomic bombs dropped there and in Nagazaki still didn't kill as many people as regular bombs did in one night.
I was only interested in this plane because my brother Victor is serving his LDS mission in Hiroshima, Japan, and it was cool to see it.

Monday was our last full day of vacation, and I had requested that we would go to the nearest beach. Jenn and Jake left for home that morning and we left shortly after that. The drive to Ocean City, Maryland was about 4 hrs (45 minutes of it was spent somewhere eating). The beach was wonderful! It was in the low 80's and the breeze was fantastic. It felt so nice to just sit on the sand and enjoy the sun! This picture is of Jacen freaking out about the water. He absolutely HATED it, and bawled every time Elijah would put him down in it. He was so mad at me for letting Elijah put him down in the water, he bit my shoulder, which was the least of my injuries while on vacation. My other one was slipping in the laundry room that was covered 1/2 inch deep in liquid laundry detergent (that was my bad) and hurting my head so bad I was in a haze most of the day and the next day, not to mention I couldn't turn my head without my neck hurting. Then I hurt myself again by slipping and sliding down carpeted stairs while bringing the bigger suitcase down to the main level. OUCH! I've been way clutzy lately, don't know why...

Anyway, shortly after this picture was taken, Jacen decided it was a good time to put a handful of sand in his mouth. So we ended up calling it a day and left before Jacen gagged on sand even more.

Our vacation was awesome and I was so excited we were able to go and relax for a change. We've had such awful schedules and hectic lives in the last 3 years that we needed something before we exploded! I'm ready for the next year now that I start my pre-med classes and things get a bit worse with our schedules, and I'll be glad to take another vacation next year for Elijah's family reunion in Myrtle Beach, SC! But if I can get away with buying tickets to go see my family in Brazil, you better believe we'll be going there instead!