My car rides

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. My deep thinking usually happens two days a week on the drive to and from the kids school. In that time usually God speaks to me or it's me speaking to him in the form of crying out to him. I have grown to treasure this drive. So in the next few weeks as we enter a time of busy, a time of celebration and holiday traditions, I am going to be writing about what God is teaching me. Good and bad. Honest and heartfelt. I hope you will read and I hope God will maybe use whatever I write to help you on your journey to be like him.

Day six and seven...

I have been a blogging slacker! I need to finish blogging about our trip. So the last day in the midst of the Hurricane Irene hoopla we visited George Washington's House Mt. Vernon. What a fun filled day. The kids loved it and one of the park guides who was giving us a tour of Mr. Washington's house told us our kids were the best behaved kids she'd seen in a long time. We like those type of compliments. On the ride from Falls Church to Mt. Vernon our route took us through downtown Alexandria. What a beautiful city! I think if it weren't in the midst of like a zillion people I'd be in love. I LOVE the colonial era.

Can't you see a future Stone Street Soaps someplace like this?

The kids with their treasure maps. I love when historical sites have things to help my kids enjoy the experience. This made their day.

Road trip day 5 and 6

Well after the exciting events the previous day. We decided just to chill at the hotel and the kids spent some time with Eric in the pool.

Day 6 was all about watching the weather. There was a hurricane in the Atlantic that had the area on edge. We decided that we may do the Baltimore Aquarium BUT after spending nearly 45 minutes in traffic and only going a half of a mile we nixed that plan and made our way near Dulles Airport to check out the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center Air and Space Museum. We were not disappointed. One it was huge, two it wasn't crowded so the kids could walk and had space to look at all the airplanes.

On the way back to the Hotel we passed a Mall and spotted a Cheesecake Factory so we decided to treat the family!

and of course I forgot to take a picture of cheesecake.

Road trip day 4

Let's just say after Monday's events we didn't think anything could top it. WRONG...There I was with the kids visiting with a friend from Parenting After Infertility and her kids when all of the sudden the world started to shake. At first it sounded like a large truck roaring by but then the shaking got worse and stronger and I knew it was an earthquake. Thankfully I had experienced one before otherwise I might of totally freaked out more than I was.

After the quake my friend and her family kindly took us to their neck of the woods because the whole DC area was shut down. We got to see some of the History of where George Washington had his surveyors office. Cool huh? The rest of the pictures are from Winchester Virginia.

Road trip day 3

Monday this glorious Monday. The Lord gave us awesome weather for our first trip in to DC. We decided to take the kids to the National Mall. Parking didn't seem to be an issue. If only we could see into the future. We loved our walk. We saw the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, World War Two memorial, and from a distance saw the White House and Capital building. We should of known something would happen it was to perfect of a day.

You see that little red sign. Yeah it should of been our warning.

You see the white SUV in the middle bottom of the picture? To the right down a ways was where our van was parked. We walked down over the hill just after the picture was taken to find our van gone. Lovely huh? Apparently the FREE Parking 9-4 Mon-Friday should of been followed by a sign tow away zone 4 to ? because that is what happened to our van followed by a $100 ticket on the windshield. We finally found our van parked in a construction zone across the street. Would of been nice if someone would of pointed out that we'd get towed if we weren't back by a certain time I mean there were only two dozen security people around and obviously our Illinois license plate and packed car would make you realize we were tourists but I guess that is the point. SO BE AWARE don't park where it says free parking even when it says free parking you never know what might happen.

Road trip day 2

Day two of our road trip was a little less eventful despite losing a signal to our phone which included the gps in which we had to find a map. Lucky for us we just happened to be right in front of a National landmark so we could look to see which way to go. Our 7 and a half hour journey took us around nine hours before we finally arrived in Falls Church.

Road trip

We are blessed enough to have a husband and father who loves his family so much that he just had to have them come with him on business to the Washington DC area. We took off Saturday morning on our fourteen hour trip. Day one was eventful and stressful rolled into one. Titus does not like to travel and he really doesn't like his car seat and I mean REALLY. We pretty much knew he would be a bear on the trip since our road trip to Texas was almost the same distance as the one we were going on. He proved us right and then some. He is quite the determined guy screaming for two to three hours at a time in between a biter biscuit or two. Or three. Let's just traveling with Titus is enough to make anyone go mad.

And then there was this.

Oh no not us. Our car was blocked by the Ambulance. Some man eating either passed out and hit his head or cut himself or both. We got several stories. It was a man in his later years out to a meal with his wife and grown Son. We used this as an opportunity to teach the kids about prayer and we stopped to pray for him while we sat on the front porch of the Cracker Barrel we were eating our lunch at.

we passed the time by posing for pictures. You can never have enough pictures!