Just Like You Imagined

We recently took a trip out to California and Utah.  While in California we spent one of our days going down the American River.  We had way too many photos for this one blog post so I compiled a little slide show of highlights.  Hope you enjoy!

-Skyelr

Marin and Nick visit the East Coast

Hahaha, so, funny story:  remember when I said over a month ago that in the near future I'd be posting more pics of that trip Marin and Nick took out here?  Well, I've finally gotten around to it.  A month counts as near future, right?  I am actually inspired by my older sister who manages to post updates about her family at least two or three times a month.  So here goes, I'm getting off my butt (actually, that's a lie, I am definitely sitting down to write this blog post) and posting a bunch of pics from more than a month ago!

So--our journey started out in Philadelphia, because that's the largest airport closest to Cape May.  Skyelr and I picked up Marin and Nick and drove down to Alexandria, VA, where we had a splendid sleepover with Bryan, Jessica, and Danny!  The next morning we got started on our sightseeing.  We did a whirlwind fast tour of the highlights of the area all in one day.   

 We started out at the NRA, of course, in Fairfax, VA.  We saw their amazing firearms collection, which included (and this one was my favorite) a pistol with carved silver bullets designated for killing vampires, Annie Oakley's gun (or at least one of them), and lots of other cool stuff. 

On the banks of the Potomac with the Washington Monument in the background.

 Then, after lunch in the NRA courtyard, we went to Washington, D.C. (Everyone around here calls it "Washington" but I find that confusing, growing up in the west nearer Washington state, so I have to call it "D.C." like my western heritage dictates.)

Skyelr took stroller duty.

He's a natural!

 We took a quick stop by the Jefferson memorial to refill our water bottles and then moved on to the Smithsonians--we picked the museum of American History.

Skyelr and a huey, his favorite kind of helicopter.

C-3PO, human-cyborg relations.

Hangin' out just outside the museum

 After a few hours in the Smithsonian we started our tour of the memorials.  We hit up the Washington, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Lincoln, and FDR memorials before heading home in separate cars--more on that story later!

Walking up to the Washington memorial...

And Marin and Nick are the coolest of cool.

Flags surrounding the W-mem.

Skyelr became Danny's new best friend.

WWII memorial

The whole gang at the Vietnam memorial

This is the view from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  Unfortunately, the reflection pool was drained.

 So, to add to our adventurous story, after the FDR memorial Skyelr and I found ourselves driving home by ourselves.  In the spirit of adventure, we decided to forgo the GPS.  (I mean, people have been living without GPS for centuries, right?  Nobody's been permanently lost in any big city as far as I know.)  We ended up getting very lost indeed, but coincidentally found ourselves at Skyelr's favorite of the memorials in the area--the Marine Iwo Jima memorial.  After some photos we found our way back to Bryan and Jessica's home.

 The next morning we stopped by the memorial again to show it to Marin and Nick on our way back north.  We then drove to Philadelphia to hit up some more national symbols--the Liberty bell and Independence Hall.

You can see why I married him, can't you? ;)

Philadelphia, PA, walking to see the liberty bell.  And yes, I did put this pic of Skye up on purpose 'cause of that face.

That's it!  That is the Liberty Bell.  Neat-O!

Skyelr in front of Independence Hall (unfortunately under construction).

 The next two days of the trip we spent in our hometown (for now) of Cape May, NJ.  We loved showing Marin and Nick around downtown.

 

The end!  I made it to the end of the blog and so did you!  Congrats!  I have a whole other trip to detail out and post up... in the near(ahem) future...

Sunset Beach: 23 Jun 2011

Hey!  Marin and Nick are visiting us for a few days, hooray!  We started out our trip with a visit to Bryan, Jessica, and Danny in Washington, D.C., and then stopped by Philadelphia for a bit on our way back to Cape May, where we enjoyed the sunset and flag ceremony at Sunset Beach.  I had so much fun taking pictures I just couldn't stop!  Here's some of them:

Sunset June 23, 2011

I tried to get the sunset and the reflection on the water and the waves to all look cool all at once.  Sometimes it worked better than other times.

Marin and Nick!  Yay!

And me and Skye...

Ooh, I like this one with the beach in the picture, too.  Plus those waves look cool.

We got a picture of Skyelr throwing rocks at me...

And with some birds...

And then the sunset just got cooler and cooler, look at this.

This picture is out of place in our sunset coolness progression pictures.  Sorry.

Doesn't that look neat?

Ok, so there was a flock of sea birds feeding on something (I tried to see what but couldn't figure it out) right on the water line and they all got frightened and flew away, which looks cool, right?

And this is just a cool shot of the sunset.  Unfortunately some stranger's hand and camera are in the picture, but only if you look closely. 

More sea birds feeding, and then...

Marin's on the attack!

And the top of Marin's head!

And I think this picture really belongs chronologically somewhere not at the end, but it looks nice anyway.

 

 

Ok!  So that was a lot of pictures, but not as many as I took!  Sometime in the near future I plan on posting our pictures of D.C. and Philly, but I'm a little blogged out right now.  Adios!