Washington DC- Just Mike and Maria

Mike and I had an amazing trip to the Washington DC area in September for the BSU vs.Virgina Tech football game. A huge thanks to all who helped us make this trip happen- Mom and Dad Barbour, Amanda, Mom and Dad Wyler, and Kurt and Rainey.

We arrived Wednesday night and stayed with Kurt and Rainey in Virgina and had a great time visiting with them. On Thursday we all drove to Colonial Williamsburg. We were there after hours so we were just walking around on our own looking at all of the neat historical sites. Here is the best part...Mike sees a cute little gate and a walk way into a back yard. Mike, myself and Noah head back there to take a look. Mike goes up to the back porch and discovers the back door of the house is open. He looks at me and says "should we go in?" Mind you, we think these are all "museum" like houses because of where we are at. Mike walks in slowly and I am still in the yard. Then I hear "can I help you?" I was a bad wife and I ran... laughing. Turns out it was a private residence! The guy wasn't mad, he says it happens a lot! It was really odd though because you would never think there would be private residences. It was basically a dirt road, no cars, no lights on in the houses, nothing really to indicate people lived there... until we learned that on the front of some of the houses there is a teeny-tiny plaque that says "private residence." You would think they would make it a little more obvious for Idaho tourists like us! One of my favorite parts of Colonial Williamsburg was walking through the church grounds. There were graves from the 1600's. Amazing. You could barely read the stones. Rainey and Kurt live in Fredericksburg, Va, which has amazing history too. Rainey took us to some civil war sites and showed us around Historical Fredericksburg.

The next day we were headed to Busch Gardens. We woke up to pouring rain, UGH. We still had to go though because we had already purchased the tickets and drove a couple of hours to be there, the night before. We headed to K-Mart for an umbrella to make it a little more bearable. There was no one there. We parked right up front at the amusement park - that never happens! We had a couple of things going for us- the weather, and it was a school and work day. It couldn't have turned out better! The rain cleared up after a few hours and we literally walked on to any ride we wanted all day long. It was so much fun!

Mike and I went to Mt. Vernon - the home of President George Washington. It was really interesting and beautiful. This pic is Mike at the bathrooms, which was a separate little building on the side of the house. We like to get pictures of Mike in front of bathrooms for some reason!

In DC we had to eat at Ben's Chili Bowl. Yummy!!

And of course BSU won! We had a great time at the game.

We took a tour of the Capitol Building. This picture of Mike is in the center of the building where all of the President's stand as they exit out to be sworn in as President.

We visited the Library of Congress, Arlington National Cemetery, The Supreme Court, The National Archives, and The Museum of Natural History. We packed a ton of stuff into this trip and were so exhausted - but we had a great time!

Were gone over a week and ready to be home- and then our flight gets delayed. That caused us to miss our connecting flight, so we were stuck in San Francisco for the night. That may have been fun, but we didn't get to our hotel until around midnight and had to be back at the airport at 5am. I missed my kids, but it was great to have a little break and spend some time with just Mike.

Better Late than Never

Yes, I am very behind in my blogging. But, here are some of our fun adventures this summer. We had a great, busy summer! My posts didn't publish is order, uggh, but at least they are there now!

Eating in Portland

Mike had to go to Portland for a business trip, so we all decided to go and have some fun! While visiting we had to go to "Voodoo Doughnuts!" It is a hole in the wall Doughnut shop that is amazing! The entire store is about 10x10 and there is always a line out of the door. We got the kids the signature voodoo doll doughnut. Mike got the maple bar with bacon on the top, and I was boring and just got a raspberry filled doughnut. I was being pressured to order and I couldn't make up my mind - so that is what I ended up with. It was so yummy!!

We also visited "Old Town Pizza." It is in a historic building which was built on top of underground tunnels. It is supposed to be haunted. Hayden says he saw a ghost!

Oregon Coast

We were so close that we had to go to the ocean, so we headed to Seaside. When we got there we naturally wanted to go to the beach and show the kids the ocean. Both Hayden and McKall hated the sand and didn't want to walk out to the water. We did have quite a walk on the sand, and it was deep, but we couldn't believe they were acting like that! This is McKall with a yucky face after touching the sand. We made it to the water and the kids finally started having fun, thank goodness, and Mike and Hayden headed out into the water. McKall didn't want to go into the water, so we played on the beach. Hayden got soaked, but he was loving it.

One day we headed out to Cannon Beach. It was chilly and windy, but beautiful. As we walked back to our car we took a path from the beach up to a main road. Well, Hayden, or should I say Mr. Independent 4 year old, decided it was ok to walk on the busy road. Obviously that was not going to fly. He would not listen and it was getting to be dangerous so it had to stop. Hayden did not want to stop. So, I attempted to grab him to pull him up to the sidewalk and keep a hold of him and he proceeded to run into the road, so I ran after him like a crazy lady. He threw a great big tantrum and it resulted in him being carried over Mike's shoulder to the car- kicking and screaming the entire way. We can laugh at it now, but Mike and I were not happy, to say the least as this was happening. I knew one day we would be able to laugh, so once mike has him secure, I couldn't help but take a picture of it! Our friends, the Rahl's, had recently moved to Seaside, so we were able to hang out with them and have a great time playing on the beach, eating ice cream and on the last night there we had a fire on the beach.

Fun in Portland

While Mike was working the kids and I went to the Portland Zoo. It was very nice and beautiful. We spent hours there looking at the animals and eating lunch. McKall was zonked at the end of the day. She plopped over on Hayden's lap and fell asleep!

The kids' Great Grandpa Larry, Shirley and Uncle Jerry were also visiting Portland for a few days while we were there. We all went to the cemetery to see Grandma Barbour's grave site and many others from our family who are buried there. After that we all went to OMSI. Hayden loved the space flight demonstration. They had a fun kids area that we spend lots of time in.

We also visited the Children's Museum and went swimming. Thanks goodness for GPS, or I would have been a lost mess trying to get to places on my own!

In the evenings after Mike was done working we took walks along the harbor where our hotel was, had fun trying different places to eat, and visited Powell Bookstore, and shopped.

Multnomah Falls

During our trip to Portland we stopped at Multnomah Falls. Beautiful! Here we are hiking up the trail to get a better look at the falls.

The little cuties taking a break. They had so much fun running up and down the trail. The weather was perfect and the trees and greenery was so pretty.

On the bridge in front of the falls.

Hayden's 4th Birthday!!

Hayden's Cousin Sam had a Cars birthday, so Hayden had to have one too for his 4th birthday! He invited a few friends and they went to the track to race cars. They had so much fun, and Hayden is actually pretty good at controlling the car. We had taken him a few times, so he had some practice.

After the race track we headed home where Mike flew a helicopter for the kids. They all took their seat in the back of the car to watch.

Of course we had to sing Happy Birthday and blow out the candles!!

Hayden went to bed that night with some of the gifts from his special day! He is laying on the pillow pet from Grandma and Grandpa Barbour that he named "stocky." He was so happy!

Fourth of July Fun!

This 4th of July was chilly! We have had a really cool summer, which was kind of nice. We went to the parade in Boise with Grandma and Grandpa Barbour. McKall held on tightly to the two little flags in her hands and waved them at the floats as they passed us. Hayden wanted nothing to do with the flags, typical!

After the parade, we walked around the newly remodeled State Capitol Building. The kids love to go up and look down. Grandma, Grandpa, Hayden and Maria got stuck in a elevator and Grandma was freaking out!!! Later that day we went to a swimming party with lots of friends.

The next evening we went to see the fireworks, at Ann Morrison Park, with the our friends the Homers. The kids loved the fireworks!!