You can fit a lot into 36 hours...

Over labor day I spent 36 hours in Washington DC. My sister Abby lives there with her new husband David (we like to call them AC/DC-last name Chipman). The were our gracious, enthusiastic hosts-emphasis on gracious and enthusiastic! Boise State was there to play their season opener with Virginia Tech (they played at FedEx Stadim in Maryland. At a "neutral field", yeah right, if neutral means 90% VT fans/10% Boise fans). Anyway, I didn't go to the game, I wasn't even planning on going at all. Ray had always planned on going to the game with the rest of my family. But my youngest sister Dana insisted that I come visit for a little while because most of my siblings were going to be there. So I went for my 36 hours and I passed Ray in the sky on my way back home. I'm SO glad I went. I wasn't there for long, I didn't get much sleep, but we packed so much into that 36 hours. It was so great to see my family, it was so great to get away from my precious little darlin's for a little while. I wish I could've gone to the game but I guess you can't have it all!

Washington DC is such a fun place to visit. It is a photographers dream, I didn't do it justice. It was so great to be able to concentrate on my budding photog skills without kids there. I think everyone got annoyed with waiting for me, sorry! I would love to go with just Ray and I sometime. There is so much I want to see. There is something so inspiring about being in our nations capital. I'm such a sucker for America.

We went to the famous Ben's Chili Bowl (I guess it's famous, really). It was super busy and crazy and I guess it is like that all the time. It was some serious sinful food, but sooo good and indulgent!

I got to see these little cuties, Jack and Mia. My brother Colin and his family came down to the game from Cleveland. (They are moving to Spokane next summer, yipee!!)

We went back to Abby and David's after dinner and played "Rock Band" and "Just Dance" until the wee hours of the morning. Oh my gosh, you HAVE to get this game. It is SO fun and SO hilarious. We are totally getting it for Christmas. Check out this video for some of the awesomeness.

We went to church the next day, their church starts at 8:00, which is like going to church at 5 am for me, weird. But we had the rest of the day to see the sights. We went to see some of the monuments. I loved this so much. I want to go back so I can see more.

The Albert Einstein Memorial (whose foot is that?? should've spent some time cropping)

Pretty amazing likeness

Abby, David, Leslie, Alex, Jason (where's Dana??)

There was a spider web in the stop light that I wish you could see better. I thought it was so symbolic, a spiderweb on the Constitution Ave. street sign :)

I *heart* American flags

A memorial to the nurses of the Vietnam War

Vietnam Veterans Statue

Les and Alex, awwww

The Washington Monument

...from the top of the Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial. Amazing.

I *heart* Abraham Lincoln

The Declaration of Independence

There's Dana!

The Korean War Memorial

The Vietnam Memorial

My kind of self-portrait ;)

Arlington Cemetery from the car window

We also went to the Eisenhower Memorial. I didn't take any pictures because it was at night and my camera isn't very good in really low light. But it was really neat, it spurred some interesting discussions. My brother-in-law David is the photographer extraordinaire and he took some shots of us being crazy.

Posers

We tried so hard to get a picture of us all jumping...

And here are a few of David's shots of the game.

That's what it was...

Awww Yeahhhh

(Boise State won, of course)

Everyone. My brother Colin went to Virginia Tech. He and that dude next to him were the lone wearers of VT gear in a sea of blue! I guess some drunk lady verbally assaulted him. Awesome. Wish I could've been there for that part, but I had such an great time! Thanks Abby and David!