Real Thanksgiving

I've decided that I really like traveling for Thanksgiving.  It gets me out of Charlotte for a few days, but it's only a few day so it's not very stressful.  We go see family, so that's fun and I don't have to worry about the food at all. 

This year we went to Fairfax, Virginia just outside of DC to visit my Aunt Gail and Uncle Mark (my mom's brother).  And it was amazing.  The drive was not nearly as bad as some had warned me it would be, thank you Google for routing us around traffic.  The drive was gorgeous--so many more trees in Virginia than in North Carolina.  The company was fantastic.  The toy room/basement was even better.  And the food was delicious.  Now I must fast for a week to get over it.

Wednesday: left Charlotte at 8 am and arrived at Mark and Gail's around 4:30.  The kids immidately discovered the basement full of toys and we didn't hear from them for the rest of the night.  Noah also joined us for dinner.

Thursday: Thanksgiving.  I was no help.  To be fair I offered to help but Gail was cool as a cucumber and just did everything.  She went to bed around 8 that night.  But the food was so good.  Noah and I ran a 4-mile race in the morning (weird length I know).  I actually did it a lot faster than I thought because at around mile 1 lady told me I was in second place so I tried to hold it.  I got passed the last half mile or so by 2 girls, putting me in what I thought was 4th place, but then I crossed the line and realized I was in like 10th place.  Liar.  Made me waste all the energy for nothing.  While we were racing, Mark and Greg took the kids on a hike behind their house to a lake, which, despite lots of whining, I think the kids really enjoyed.  We spent the rest of the day doing puzzles, playing in the basement and being fat and laze.

Friday: We hit up the National Mall, which isn't as child-friendly as I remember it being.  First off, it was super crowded.  Last time we went it was full of 8th-graders, this time it was a bunch of families.  I'll take the families with their low child to adult ratio any day.  Nevertheless it was crowded.  We went to the National Gallery first, because Alice wanted to see some art.  She loved it, but Zora Jane hated it and gave just about every guard a heart-attack from touching stuff.  We lasted 45-minutes there.  Then we headed to the Natural History Museum, which I remember being fairly kid-friendly, but it wasn't.  Rex and Greg took their time reading all their signs.  Alice and Noah did their own thing while Henry, Zora and I tried to find something interesting to look at that didn't take a lot of reading.  We were pretty hard pressed.  We got lunch from a food truck then launched on our 4-hour tour of the monuments.  We saw the WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Vietnam, Korea, Martin Luther King and FDR (my personal favorite), and pointed at the Jefferson one before taking the 45-minute 1.67 mile hike back to the car.  Poor Rex was so tired as he was the only child to walk the entire thing.  I suggested that we stop and rest a few times so he'd sit on a bench for about 30 seconds, I couldn't sit down since I had a sleeping Henry strapped to my back, then get up and say let's just get this over with.  He was a trooper. 

Rex and the Capitol building

Being super respectful at the Lincoln Memorial

At the Lincoln Memorial, looking at the Washington Momument

WWII

I think Henry got off the stroller twice?  He's really not into walking.

Alice and her favorite person, Noah

Alice and a Rembrant

Saturday: We went to the Air and Space Hanger where all the planes are.  It was cool but not very Henry/Zora friendly.  We ended up spending quite a bit of time eating snacks while the big kids and Greg took a closer look at things.  We did a basic run by of most of the air planes and then went up to the observation tower, which was cool.  Then we got lunch at Chick-fil-A and came home for naps.  I accidentally fell asleep for two hours, but it felt so good.  Meanwhile, Greg and the big kids played in the basement and Greg reversed engineered an old Lego set and was super impressed by Gail's ability to keep all the Legos together for nearly 20 years.

Henry still refusing to walk

Barf.  The amount of time my kids spend rubbing their heads/faces on public floors is astounding.

snack time

More snacks

a fairly entertaining demonstration of what happens to your unprotected head in a vacuum.

wrestling Uncle Noah 

This chest was an oven all weekend and the kids spent a lot of time cooking each other. Not sure how concerned I should be about this.

Sunday: We hit up Sacrament with Gail and then headed home, afraid of the traffic.  Again, not too bad thanks to Google routing us around the worst stuff, but it still took about an hour longer than it should have. 

All-in-all, a great weekend.  Now, what should we do next year?