To DC and More

Long time no posts, I know. We've been on vacation! What a wonderful thing. Jeremy had a week and a half off. We spent the first part of it getting caught up with little things, then we went to DC to visit my sister Melissa and her family. Here's a collection of pictures (a LOT of pictures).

This was actually a month or so before. We just need to show off Sydney's styling hair once we get the food out of it.
Cora wanted to join the photo shoot.

This is what Katie does when I put her down for "quiet time." She pulls out her clothes and has a party. In her hand you see a pair of white socks that she's stuffed with other socks and calls it her muffin, cupcake, or cranberry juice. On her head you see a halloween skirt she calls her headband.

And then she falls asleep somewhere random. Like on top of the dresser.

Now we're in DC at the National Zoo. Katie, Sydney and I were checking out the carnivour exhibit near the lions. They had cubs out, two mamas, and a daddy lion while we were there and we got to hear them roar. I think Jeremy and I were more excited about that than the girls were.

Cora and her daddy.

I promise we didn't have another one. That cute little addition is my sister's little Lila.

And there's cousin Van with us.

They did this on their own. It's so fun to have cousins! Even if we only see them once a year.

Working hard at the Building Museum.

This was Jeremy and I getting some quality time with Katie at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. The best part was she ran around it pushing her stroller shouting "Follow the Prophet" as loud as she could.

My cookie monsters at the WWII memorial.

Cora at our belayed egg hunt with the cousins.

There's Sydney adding to the stash.

We made it to the Baltimore Aquarium while we were there and it was awesome! It's true, you can only show a two year old so many fish, but between the dolphins, sting rays, sharks and the rain-forest at the end, we had a very good time.

Maybe the toddlers' favorite part was actually the bubbles at the gift shop.

Scare you? It's just a picture behind us, but it sure looks good, doesn't it?

So we ended that day by doing a kid swap with Jon and Melissa at the temple. We even ran into some of Jeremy's extended family there. The world is so small when you're memebers of the Church. The kids had a great time playing on the lawn. And I can't tell you how much I loved being able to take them everywhere without bundling three little kids up with boots, coats, mittens, and hats. I kept feeling like I was forgetting something, but it was such a sense of freedom!

Love this temple. If you're heading west on the 495 around DC, there's this point where it just stands out above the trees right in front of you. It's amazing.

This is Sydney trying to tell us that the light is hot. Cora found that out earlier by putting her hand on it. No major burns, but it sure made her cry.

Cora did recover.

They loved to give Lila loves. I think they were excited that someone was younger than they were.

The end. There's actually so much more to say. My mom came out to stay with us the day after we got back and Jeremy and I went to Vegas for an anesthesia conference, but our computer is so slow it's taken me about an hour just to type in these captions, so we'll save it for another night. In summary: DC was awesome, thanks Melissa and Jon, Sydney threw up on the way home (are you surprised?), we loved driving up the East Coast, but we'll probably love it more when we're not trying to plan it around naps, diapers, and meltdowns (don't ask how early we got up for each drive).