Trip to DC and Halloween

I got the opportunity to go to Washington DC last weekend to represent Stata at the American Public Health Association conference. Since Jared's mom only lives a couple of hours away, it worked out perfectly for the whole family to come. We flew up to DC on Friday. It was much colder than the weather we are used to in TX. Jared and the girls were staying Friday evening and all day Saturday. His mom picked them up Sunday morning before my conference started.

Bundled up to go get dinner.

We knew that the weather on Saturday was likely to be bad, so we took the girls on a walking tour around DC on Friday evening. They were both pretty worn out from traveling, so as soon as we got them all bundled up and riding in the stroller, they both fell asleep.

We walked around the mall and saw most of the monuments. On the way back, we went by the white house. Jared and I had been to DC before, but it was really neat to see everything at night.



I am not sure if you can tell here, but Madison did wake up to see most of the monuments. Annabel slept through most of it.


On Saturday, as predicted, the weather was pretty nasty. We decided to try to stay inside, so we headed to the natural history museum. Maddie liked all of the dinosaur bones. They spent the first couple of weeks of preschool this year talking about dinosaurs.


Annabel was very excited about the penguin.


We had ridden the metro from our hotel to the museum, but the escalators were not working to get back down to the metro on the way back. We didn't think we could make it down with the stroller, so we pushed the girls about 8 blocks to our hotel with sleet pelting us. They were freezing, so we spent most of the afternoon inside. The hotel had an indoor pool that we played in for a while. It even snowed later that afternoon. By evening the precipitation was over and we were able to get back outside.

On Sunday morning, Jared's mom picked us up and we got lunch and the Cheesecake factory (yum!). Then they headed to Williamsburg and I headed to work.

That evening his mom's church was having a harvest carnival. The girls dressed up and had a great time.

Nana with our little ladybug and little mermaid.

Playing games


The cake walk


Madison and Christopher. Showing off the cookies she won at the cake walk.


Jared's sister, Rachel, lives close to Nana and came to visit.


On Monday morning, they got to go to the Yankee candle store. It is huge and has all sorts of fun things. They saw a show with a mouse and a rat and a clock. They even got to talk to Santa.



They trick-or-treated in Nana's neighborhood on Halloween night.

Ready to go!




Rachel, her husband Jared, and baby Levi, the penguin.


Nana with Rachel and all of her grandkids.


It was a great trip. The girls even traveled pretty well.

We picked the dogs up the next day. When Jared went in and asked for Wrigley and Ginger, the lady at the front desk said "Oh, you mean Team Chaos". Well, I guess that about describes them, but we were glad to see them anyways.

It even cooled off a little in TX. We decided it was time for the first pot of chili for the year. The girls loved it, especially Annabel.