President's Day Weekend and Lots of Adventures

We were blessed with beautiful weather coinciding with a 3-day weekend and we took full advantage! Saturday, we had plans to visit my brother and his family. He moved to Northern Virginia last year and is living in Herndon. He expects that they will return to England in the next year or two, so we are enjoying having them close while we can. Since they live so close to the Bull Run National Park, we decided to make a day of it by seeing the park in the morning and visiting with my brother in the afternoon. Everyone was in a good mood and happy to be outside. It was a beautiful place with numerous well-marked trails. We spent a couple of hours enjoying a short site walk and then headed to Jim's house. Jack would like it known that this is his favorite of the battlefields we have visited (which, is actually saying something, because we have visited a lot!).

There were lots of marker posts, one cool thing was that they told a story in chronological order.

My sister-in-law, Sheryl, made a fantastic lunch and the kids enjoyed visiting with their cousins. Jessica is 15 and is super sweet to the kids. She let them play in her room and showed them her pets and was just generally awesome to them. Their other daughter, Emily, wasn't feeling very well, so we didn't see quite as much of her, but of course, the kids enjoyed being with her too.  After lunch, we walked to a small park near their house and Jim made up obstacle courses for the kids.  Jack wasn't much of a participant, but everyone else really enjoyed the competition. Luke was especially into it and tried to imitate everything the older kids did. It was funny. We left their house around 4 and headed home, stopping at Cafe Rio in Waldorf for dinner. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures with Jim and Sheryl, I left my phone/camera in my purse and didn't take it out the whole time we were there.

Sunday was another beautiful day and we went to a local park. We did a 2.5 mile hike around the lake and then head a picnic lunch at the playground. We bribed the kids with a "surprise" if they didn't complain during the hike. Not only did they not complain, but they really enjoyed it. The only surprise I had to offer was a single Hershey bar, that we divided up among the kids. It was another wonderful day.

Monday, we took the metro into DC for a spontaneous museum visit. We went to American and Natural History. We have found that the best way for our family to visit the museums is to go in with a somewhat specific plan. We don't try and see everything, we pick a couple of areas and leave before people get tired. We had thought we would also walk over to the Jefferson Memorial, but called it a day after the two museums. Once again, I didn't think to take pictures, but I did capture these cute pictures, just as the metro was leaving a station.

Everyone was well-behaved and cooperative all weekend. It was nice to have them "go with the flow" and enjoy the moments as they approached.