weekend before last

alright since the weekend has come and gone, i guess i should give a quick update about the weekend before last when mom, her friend charlie, and his daughter brooke were in town. they got there thursday evening and watched jake while we rushed off to teach vbs at church. we got home and visited and planned for dc the next day.

on friday, we rode the train all the way in to union station and walked a few blocks over to sen. lamar alexander's office for our tour of the capital bldg. he wasn't there of course, but the tour was pretty cool (though we didn't get to see the senat chamber even after they told us on the tour they thought we'd get to). after that we caught a hot dog on the street on the walk over to the int'l spy museum. it was really interesting and now i'm geared up to see all the bond movies. should i do this in order? i'm on netflix now and it's really easy and convenient to get movies delivered to my door. we were zonked from all the walking so we took the first train out of town and ate dinner at famous dave's (mmmmm....) before me and L went back up to church again to teach vbs.

we got out of vbs the next day because mom had also arranged a tour of the white house! there were considerably more people than i thought would be there (i didn't even know they had opened the wh back up!) and it was just the east half (e.g. not the "west wing") of the first two floors, but it was really cool. kind of weird too (i'm actually in the white house.).

after that, we walked over to the holocaust memorial museum (best in town) by way of the washington monument (all the free tickets were gone in two hours so we didn't get to go up). after a long line for a security check (ugh...) we were able to get in. we had to wait a bit longer to start so we went through the special exhibit on eugenics (yeah i've never heard the word before either, but it looks like a combo of euthanasia and genetics which is appropriate because it's about the nazi plan to create the master race). while in the regular exhibit, jake started crying / was hungry so lindsay took him on out. me and mom took the rest at a fast pace and hung out with lindsay and jake on the main level while charlie and brooke soaked in some of the more moving portions of the museum. again, we were zonked (museum is 4 floors!) so we headed home and got things ready to grill out.

we had grilled corn on the cob, steaks, burgers, hot dogs, baked beans, potato salad and we ate outside. oh yeah! the weather on that particular weekend was absolutely beautiful - literally the best weather we might have ever had since i've been there. it was low 70's with just enough chill in the air to make it feel good. oh and it was august not october.

that evening, me and charlie worked on some projects around the house (adding outlets to the bathrooms and patching a big hole in the wall in the bathroom from some plumbing work.). he did all the electrical work and i cut the drywall and lumber and fit it in the hole. felt manly.

on sunday, we went to church and then to red lobster for lunch. we chilled around the house for a bit and then decided to go over to mt. vernon (george washington's home). it was really cool and i'm glad me and L sprung for the one year passes ($15 vs. $11 one time haha). after the peaceful walking, we headed home and finished up the home projects.

a great weekend where me and L were able to do 4 touristy things (out of 5 - holocaust) that we'd never done before.