Washington D.C.

My parents wanted to see Washington D.C. before they headed back to Idaho. We drove up on Friday and saw Mount Vernon on the way there. Mount Vernon, by far, was my favorite part of any of our site-seeing. If you do one thing while visiting out east, go to Mount Vernon! It was SO beautiful and was decorated wonderfully. It was interesting, yet again, to learn about another founding father. George Washington was truly a great man! Sadly, I didn't get any pictures. :(

We then went to see all of the monuments in DC as part of an evening tour. It was awesome. The guide told us so many good stories and facts.

The following day we went to Arlington and watched the changing of the guard at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

We then went to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The writing on the Declaration is SO faded, you can barely see it. We followed that up by seeing 'thee' ruby slippers at the Museum of American History and then finished the day at the Museum of National History.

We then had to drive up to Baltimore to drop my parents off at the airport to fly home. We were so sad to see them go! We loved having them here in Virginia!

That basically summed up the end of our big traveling this summer. So in 6 weeks we went through Utah, Arizona, and Nevada to get to California. We drove to Idaho twice and then drove through Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Washington DC and Maryland! Whew!! I never want to travel again!

Monticello

On July 17th, we decided to go spend the day up at Monticello. We enjoyed learning more about Thomas Jefferson (he also founded UVa) and seeing such a monumental piece of architecture. It was beautiful from the outside and quite unique and somewhat impractical on the inside. Thomas Jefferson strikes me as the classic Renaissance man who tried to think of everything he could do differently and then try it out. Somethings were cool, and some things were just a little ridiculous (like the super skinny staircases). The grounds were beautiful and it was awesome to see the surrounding area from the hill.

Moving to Virginia

We had everything packed and ready to load by Friday the 11th. That same day was also my last day of work, Hallelujah! My parents helped us move. They drove the moving van while we drove our car and payed for it all! We were SO grateful for their help. There is no way we could have done it without them! The drive started on Saturday morning. We drove the first leg to Colorado Springs to visit Morgan's family. We spent Saturday evening and all of Sunday at Morgan's house visiting, playing games and letting the grandparent's kiss on little Eva.

The next leg of our trip took us from Colorado Springs to just past St. Louis. I've never driven past Colorado and I thought it was beautiful. Eva did SO well. She hardly ever cried and just entertained herself most of the time. She was glad to get out of her car seat at the end of the day, though. She squealed and rolled around on the bed and was just so cute.

We woke early the next day again and drove about 10 hours to Charlottesville. When we arrived at our town home, we met our landlord and then much to our surprise were met with about 5 men from the ward that our landlord had arranged to help us move everything in. We got everything into the house in no time at all and I got right to work unpacking. Everything was in place by the next day. We love our new place her in Virginia! It is absolutely beautiful!

Beginning of July

After Disneyland things didn't settle down at all. We jumped right into packing up everything we owned and getting ready for the big trip. Morgan starts Law School at University of Virginia on August 18th and our town home was ready to be lived in on July 1st. We set the move out date for July 12th. That gave us about 10 days to get everything ready to go. So, we packed, I worked and Morgan watched baby. We found ourselves traveling, once again, up to Idaho for the 4th of July. On the way up we stopped to see our friends the Lazarevs up in Salt Lake. They have a sweet boy who is just 3 months younger than Eva. He is the cutest, most serious baby. We sat both kids down in front of each other and they started laughing and cooing at each other. Eva, unfortunately, did a few explosive laughs which scared poor Charlie and made him cry, which then made Eva cry. That happened about three times.

The 4th of July was SO wonderful! We got to Idaho in the late afternoon, had BBQ ribs for dinner, had a cook out at Grandma and Grandpa Christensen's house (just like old times) and then watched and lit fireworks. The next day we helped run a sprint triathlon that Beka put together. We kayaked along side the swimmers and then timed the runners as they came in. Grandma Kate cooked some awesome pancakes and then we all went golfing. It was such a great weekend! We then came back to Provo on Sunday night to pack some more.

Disneyland Trip: California Adventure!

Saturday was Mom's birthday. We kept saying all day that there wasn't a better way for her to celebrate than to be in Disneyland with her grand baby. We again made it to all of our favorite rides multiple times. We even road Radiator Springs Racers 4 times in 45 minutes. We had awesome food in California Adventure and then Morgan and I ran back to Radiator Springs Racers one last time to ride it when it was dark…and it was SO worth it. That ride is definitely one of my favorites and gets even better when it is dark outside. We finished the day by watching World of Color, which is awesome like always.

 Eva rode a Carousel for the first time in California adventure. She actually really liked it!

 We were on our way to the Ferris Wheel when I lost Morgan in the crowd. I turned back to find him like this:

 He was watching the mini water show they do all throughout the day through the fence. I just had to take a picture because he just is so darn cute!

The next day we packed our bags, drove to church and then made the long drive back to Provo. We were totally exhausted and loved every minute of our vacation!