D.C. - Day 1

Quote of the Day: "Mom, when a boy drives a mini-van it takes away his manhood!" - Seth

They say the journey of a lifetime begins with one step. Well, ours began with one flight. A flight to D.C. Dave and I had been looking forward to this trip for months, so we were SO excited that this day was finally here!

Seth was very excited too! This was before we even

left the Salt Lake Airport.

It was a full flight to D.C. - they had made this announcement over the intercom many times.  Dave and I definitely got our trip started out on the right foot because we had an empty seat next to us! The only empty seat on the entire flight! So we had plenty of leg room, and I had plenty of room to sleep! I put my feet up on the chairs and slept in Dave's lap for about half of the flight! It was awesome!  Dave kept himself busy by winning that in-flight trivia game 3 times in a row! Trivia has always kind of been his thing.

Life after the plane ride wasn't so great. We had reserved an 8 person rental car, and for some reason, when we got to the rental car place they didn't have our reservation anymore. They had already given away our car! So we literally spent two and a half hours waiting for a car to drive out of the airport.

Everyone being really grumpy about our car not being here!

This is where the quote of the day comes in. RaNae was wondering why we couldn't just get a mini-van to drive around in. Seth apparently thought this was a terrible idea, because that's when he said, "Mom, when a boy drives a mini-van it takes away his manhood! " Everyone was getting pretty grouchy. We were starving, hot, and just tired of waiting around for a car. So, there happened to be two yucky brooms off to the side of where we were waiting, and Dave and Brock decided to do a little number to "lift our spirits"! 

A Step In Time
You can hear us all giggling in the background.

Their dance cheered us up a bit, and not long after that, our car finally came.  We found our hotel, checked in, dropped off our luggage, and headed back to Alexandria, Virginia for a firework show for the anniversary of the founding of Alexandria.  We still hadn't found a place to eat yet, but were planning on finding one in Alexandria. Well, everyone decided to show up for the fireworks, so it was CROWDED. There was nowhere to park, and we couldn't find a place to eat anywhere. This only added to our frustration and grouchiness. We finally found a parking place and walked to Popeye's, where we ended up eating. By this point, hardly anyone was speaking to each other. At this point, I made everyone smile for a picture and pretend like they were happy to be on vacation.

Some people were better pretenders than others. :)

When everyone finally had a chance to eat, we walked to the fireworks.  We made it just in time, and were able to see the entire show from pretty darn close!

It was about this time in the show that Brock (Dave's brother)

started singing the music from Wishes, the firework show

at DisneyWorld. He is a performer there and said fireworks just

aren't the same without music in the background, so he was making his own.

We got lots of strange looks from all the people around us.

The Grand Finale

They had a princess street! I couldn't resist!

Alexandria was beautiful. Apparently it is on the top ten most romantic cities in America, and I definitely see why. There are so many quaint little houses, and lots of old rustic buildings.  It was such a beautiful city, and we wished we could have spent more time there. If we could do DC over again, we would for sure want to spend more time in Alexandria. 

We thought it would be a fun idea to go get some Ben & Jerry's ice cream after the fireworks, which would have been a really great experience if the ladies working there weren't so MEAN! They did not like helping anyone and they let you know that. They were also the slowest moving people on the planet, and we waited in line for about 20 minutes before we ever got our order taken. The ice cream was delicious, but needless to say, we didn't go back to Ben & Jerry's that trip.