The DC Adventure - the 2012 edition

So a funny story led to this blog post... A very dear friend of mine who lives overseas called me the other day.  Despite the cell phone age we live in, calls from those living in other countries are still a special thing, and I was so surprised to hear her voice.  What a treat!  So my friend launches into telling me how much she has been thinking of me, and how she is praying for me (all great, making me feel special), and how she knows how things have been tough (at this point, starting to wonder, is there something going on that I don't know about??), and then asks, so how are you?  And I'm like, well, we got 15 inches of snow here in Minnesota this past weekend, and she bursts out, "Oh, I called the wrong Sara!" Haha, I thought she had sounded funny!  But it was still great to catch up, and then I felt guilty when she said, I keep checking your blog to see how your trip was.  Oops.  So here goes...

The drive was long. Enough about that.  Our first day we visited Mt. Vernon, George Washington's home.  So much history, beautiful home, amazing scenery, great tour, very overwhelming.  How do you accurately describe such a place in a short paragraph?

 The kids really enjoyed this tour - which we found out later at dinner when Luke described a movie we watched in the museum about the Battle of Boston and the Battle of Trenton, describing what a brilliant tactician George Washington was in battle.  Luke gave a very animated, thorough and accurate account of the movie.  We were impressed!

Our second day was a big one, and unfortunately no great camera photos.  I do have some photos on my phone, but for the most part could not even take pictures because we toured the White House.  You are not allowed to bring anything in to the White House other than keys, wallet and cell phone, and if they catch you with your cell phone out, they confiscate it.  But the White House is amazing.  We got to see the entire first floor, including the Green Room, Red Room, Blue Room, State Dining Room, and East Room, where they do the press conferences.  We also got to see some of the ground floor - the library, China Room and a couple of others.  Very cool to see where so much history has taken place.

And then we had plenty of time to hang with the cousins.  We played tag at a park,

 Uncle Charles introduced Ava and Luke to Monopoly,

 And there was a lot of piano playing.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, just the adults went to Charlottesville, VA, and toured Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's estate.  This was a highlight of our trip for me.  So beautiful, and again, so much history and so overwhelming.

The picture below is one of my favorites, not because it is an amazing picture, but it is one of the most amazing things about the estate.  All of the slave quarters, stables, kitchens, storage rooms and an ice pit are underneath the house!  This is looking through the long passageway that goes below the entire house, with rooms off to the right and left.  Jefferson wanted to leave as much of the landscape untouched, instead of building above ground all of the buildings to keep the estate running, he hid them underground.  Amazing. 

 And then it was almost over. We made a couple of more Chick-Fil-A runs, played some more cards, and just enjoyed being together.  A great trip.  Love you Causeys!

PS. We won't mention how long the drive back was, or the fact that we hit the world's largest raccoon that caused $1200 damage to our van.  Because we want to remember how great the trip was.