December trip to Washington, DC.

It has taken me so long to get to upload these photos and pick a few that were my favorites. In December I flew to DC to visit my husband and met up with my in-laws there for a small family reunion. I sure hope our next home is closer (and cheaper to travel to) than DC. This trip was so much fun, and I wish I could have stayed... but luckily while I was there we signed a lease to an apartment that I will be moving to in one week from now!! Anyway, I want to share some of my most favorite little memories from this trip so that I don't forget them. 

Chelsea, Dillon, Opal, Karla, Doug, Jeremiah, Jerrod. December 31st, 2014.

We really didn't take any photos the entire trip, and this was the only real family photo we took.... on the night before Dillon's parents and brothers left! I wish we took more, especially while we were out exploring DC. We had brunch at Eastern Market, went to Ben's Chili bowl, ate dinner (a couple times) at Hop's, and more. Opal loved eating goldfish with her grandma, and playing hard to get with her uncle Jeremiah. By the end of the tirp everyone knew all the words to the Taylor Swift song "Blank Space"... because that was the only thing Opal wanted to listen to or do!

Lovebirds. January 1st, 2015. DC.

Dillon and Opal, Washington Monument, January 1st, 2015.

Chelsea and Opal, Washington Monument, January 1st 2015.

Dillon and I found a beautiful hotel that made itself out to be located on/ near the Dulles airport, which is a pretty reasonable drive (40 minutes) to save some bucks. WELL, turns out this hotel was actually 30 MINUTES PAST Dulles...... and requires tolls. $8 in total! meaning $16 a day! This was an awful thing to come to find out, and by the end of the trip we ended up just getting a room at the Americana Hotel (literally love this place and how reasonably priced it is for being in Arlington!) So we spent New Year's Eve there! We promised to stay up this year for the countdown and ended up all falling asleep about 30 minutes before. (ha-ha!) We are officially old birds.

So being that we were already in Arlington, we walked a couple blocks bright and early on New Years day and caught the Metro. We definitely thought we would see more than lost gloves on our walk. We even made a game out of it and tried to find other things like shoes! Drunk people always lose things on the walk home! :-) Our first stop was the Washington Monument. I wanted to go up since it is open now, but it was MUCH to clod to wait in the long line that had already formed. Thankfully I am moving back so I have more time to try to get up in there!!

We sat and ate hotdogs on a bench next to the monument to warm ourselves up. Have I mentioned that I love hot dogs? Whenever I see a hotdog stand, go to costco, SAMS, or Ikea, I HAVE to buy a hotdog! I seriously do.

I love little things like that. Eating a hotdog with my husband in the Nation's Capitol on a beautiful morning... and New Year's Day at that! How amazing is it that I get to share this life and these experiences with my family. I will cherish these memories for the rest of my life.

One of the reasons I love living in Washington, DC is all there is to do. My favorite museum is the National Museum of Natural History. It was the one place I wanted to take Opal because of all the things there is for her to look at.  The line was too long that day, but I will go back and experience the butterfly room with them. I have to! I have been wanting to go in that magical room for so long now. Opal always loves to look at the animals in the North American mammal exhibit. This is also Dillon's favorite because of the wolves, bears, and deer. He's a big fan of our beautiful woodland animals. (Reason why the nursery will have this theme!)

Papa bear and baby bear. DC. 2015. Natural museum.

Washington, DC is such a beautiful city. It is a magical place jam packed full of history, art, and undiscovered gems all over the place. I will miss this city when we leave.

Dillon being the best daddy in the whole wide world. Washington, DC, January 1st 2015.

I loved seeing Dillon bounce back into daddy mode. He was buckling car seats, hauling the stroller around and fixing apple juice sippy cups like he hadn't missed a beat. I can't wait to get back to our normal family routine! I'm so excited for it.

Our sweet babe.

Opal's poor little nose was red pretty much the whole trip! Except for being in the hotel where we kept it too warm according to Dillon! :-) We just drove him bonkers! We wanted all of his attention and wanted to be so silly together. She wanted to show him all of her toys, read all of her books (at once) and kiss him allllll day. Her sweet little kisses were all for daddy the whole week we were there. I absolutely loved seeing her love on him. She misses him so much, and I know he must have been so glad that she felt that comfortable with him again.

 After we left the museums we headed to Ted's bulletin in Eastern Market and ate lunch. I seriously fell in love with their tomato soup and then had to pack my sandwich to go because I couldn't eat anything after! (this darn pregnant belly is already messing up my appetite!)

Opal at DC-3 (hot dog joint on 8th ST) Last day of trip.

 On our last day we went to the barracks and packed our bags there. We had lunch with daddy at DC-3 and spent the last hours laughing and having fun in our favorite neighborhood. This trip was so much fun. It has me so excited and giddy about my move back the Nation's Capitol. I can't wait to share more of our explorations of DC and more cool memories.

Where, OH whereeee have I been?!

Hey guys! I have been so busy busy busy. Opal and I are currently recovering from a small cold that seems to be passing pretty quickly. 

I wanted to share a few of the photos from Dillon's trip. We had so much fun, it was amazing to see Opal and her daddy reconnect and form a bond again. She has been asking for his every day. He is literally the first thing she asks for in the morning. She pops up and smiles really big and lets out the cutest "dada?".... 

It melts my heart. 

Anyways, while he was here we did a lot of activities, so here are some of my favorites:

First, I picked him up in Los Angeles, so we headed to Hollywood BLVD and had lunch at Dave & Busters. We then walked the strip and went to Ripley's Believe it or not. It was a lot of fun and they had some really neat stuff.

We went to Ikea afterwards, and then hit the road to go home.

When we got home we decided to take Opal to the zoo and to an amusement park for children.

 Dillon and Opal fed and pet sting rays. It was very cool.

 They fed the giraffe together! Opal was amazed at how big the giraffe was.

 She loved the petting zoo. She kept saying, "dog, dog, dog".. haha!

She is basically as tall as me, now!

I secretly loved having Dillon there to push the stroller so that I could do more fun stuff!

Opal really enjoyed the merrie-go-round. After this photo was taken, tons of other kids hopped on with us.

 nursing pit stop!

We also took her to the park to play. She and daddy went down all of the slides and she got to go on the swings.

I have a lot more stuff to share, but I still need to edit the photos.

After his week here, we drove to Monterey, CA and to San Francisco. It was amazing.

We had a couple bad luck scenarios but we made the very best out of it.

:-)