Camping Trip

The camping team grew larger after two days. Mom, Anna and Kent drove to Mount Mitchell. We camped at a site for one night and the next morning Mom made sure we had protein for the next couple of days. She is a grilling master! We had egg and cheese sandwiches. The 4 of us left for another leg of the backpacking trip. Mom went to a a camp site at Montreat College (the junior college that she went to) It was foggy and rainy when we set out.

It looks like we're hiking at night, but it was really during the morning. Matching rain jackets!The weather eventually cleared up.We couldn't help but notice that Anna looked a little like a cancer patient- her hair was completely tucked under her hat. We started calling this her "Make a Wish" Trip.A bear print FOR SURE.Dad got horsie poo on his boot.Check out the view!
Each trip we find water behind this old house. It is cute little house, but if we stand around for awhile we start to get a little freaked out by it. Does the 9-fingered hilly billy live there??Kait made her first fire!Instead of carrying a tent, we carry two tarps and stakes. It creates intense bonding experiences.

The Secret Club

A backpacking club has been started, Dad and Kait are the founding members. It's really just people who like to camp and backpack. Last week we set out on our annual spring trip. Members of the club have names. From left to right: Squatting dog and Freaky sneaky.

If you remember last year's trip, we hiked to Deep Gap, but couldn't find water. This time we found water!! This is Dad siting by the water.Morning #2. This is when we start to smell a little bit. We were glad to survive the night camping near the creepy mountain man, Cliff. PB&J tortilla wraps for lunch! Very tasty after hiking.This may look like a picture of a goofy hiker, but this is Santa! Last year, we had to hike back because we couldn't find water. We saw THIS GUY (who looked exactly like Santa) at EXACTLY the same spot last year. He told us where to find water. So when we saw him this year, Dad started yelling "I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" Kait thought he saw an old college friend and Santa probably thought he was crazy. Same guy, same place=once in a lifetime kind of thing!

Day 2 & 3

Mom pulled the ultimate geeky tourist look with a HIP PACK Making a wish at the Art GalleryHanging out next to the Washington MemorialWe toured embassy homes. Mom and Anna were daring enough to try some of the food. Anna was not a big fan of Columbian food.Lunch at union station. In the middle of lunch Dad told us that gyros contained lamb meat. Eww. Anna and Kait just kept telling themselves that it looked and tasted like sausage.Group picture outside of the holocaust museum.Kait tried lobster for the first time. Check out the cool bib!We toured the monuments on our last night

Day 1

Mom was determined to make the most of our trip. On the first morning, she woke us up at 7 and assigned the shower schedule.. she was eager to hit the ground running. Here we are standing in line for tickets to the capital building. After we got our tickets, we found out that none of the buildings opened until 10:00 am. So we sat in front of tee pees for awhile.

The sidewalk in front of the Botanical Gardens had a bunch of different globes. This was something like reduce, reuse, recycle. We sat around and waited longer. We tried our best to avoid the millions of middle schoolers that were there on field trips. Millions of them.Our Mom could out-tourist all of you.Ben at the Botanical Gardens.We went on a tour of the Capital, but our tour guide was an old lady and we couldn't hear a thing she said. The highlight was meeting Fabio, a tourist from Brazil.We knew we would meet someone famous!! Ben and Jesus by the Capital.This was the conference that Dad went to. We could spot a lot of the doctors all over the place. We just looked for bald old guys with glasses.Dad finished each day at noon and we hung out for the rest of the day.We visited the National Cathedral.If you ever go, check us out in the SC guest book! We lost Mom in the gift shop so we hung out on the lawn and waited.She brought us cathedral cookies. Ice cream sandwiches, possibly made by the church ladies themselves.We topped off day 1 with dinner at Union Station.

Are We There Yet?

We started our road trip at 1:30pm. Ben is the only one who can drive a stick shift so he had to drive the whole way. At first we were excited to hit the road, but then we hit hour 2,3,4... This was hour 2. The plan was to take a picture at each hour, but we soon found out that we did the same thing for each hour: nothing. We played 4 games of "20 questions" and the "ABC" license plate game.

After about 7 hours, we made it to Washington D.C. We were so close, but took the wrong exit and got lost. We found out 2 things while searching for our hotel

1) The D.C. police are pretty nice

2) They are quick to respond when somebody(us) turns into a blocked area.

This picture is Ben, lost in D.C. about to bust a gut, if he doesn't find the hotel. But if we knew how much we were going to WALK in the next 3 days and how many old PAINTINGS we were going to see... we might have kept driving.

More details to come!

A Letter to our Parents

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thanks for letting us come to Washington D.C. for Dad's work trip.
Thanks for planning each day with fun things to do.
Thanks for graciously taking the plane and letting us drive there.

See you in 8 long hours and 3 long minutes.

Love,

Us

Guess Who

Who's the goofy family member on the floor, in church clothes, right before Mother's Day lunch? Grandma!!! She couldn't resist a little one on one time with her first grandbaby. Wes & Sara have already taught him to sit and lay down.Oliver was checking out Grandpappy. He was playing the role as fashion police. -5 points for dress socks and slippers. + 10 points for the hat.