What an absolutely wonderful trip home! As always, too short, but a great trip at that! I’m going to run you through some of the highlights!

My first highlight was waiting for me right at my gate in Seattle.. My cousin Jennie and the newest addition to the family, little Evelyn! Unfortunately I found out after I booked my trip home that I would be flying in the exact day my cousin was flying out.. It ended up not being bad news though because we traded flight info and ended up having an hour slot between the time I landed and she took off. Even luckier, we ended up flying the same airline and were at the exact same gate! How crazy right? So sure enough I was able to catch both of them briefly before they had to board their flight!

After the excitement of seeing Jennie and Evelyn, I was off to find my mom! After a few escalators, texts, and calls later we were reunited. YAY! Then we were off to try and find my mom’s car. Note to self, if you park at Seatac make sure you write down where you parked! It might have taken a little while, but we did finally find the car. Then we were off to grab some grub. Traveling sure makes you hungry! My request? The good Old Spaghetti Factory! Oh how I miss my chain restaurants!

I can never get enough of their spinach tortelli with alfredo sauce either. Mmmm mmm!

When we made it to my mom’s house I got to meet the newest addition to her home.. little Bugs, the bug-eyed fish! Later in my trip, an associate at Petco would tell us that these fish live to be 30 years old. So, it sounds like he’s going to be around for many trips to come ;-).

We closed out the night with a fire in my mom’s new fire pit! The neighbors must have got the memo I was in town too, because they decided to light off some fireworks, which was pretty cool until Bentley started getting freaked out.

No worries for her though… because… she has a Thundershirt! Had to snap this pic.. she just looked too funny.

The next morning, I happily awoke to my mom cooking her cheesy egg sauce, one of my favorites! Nothing like home cooking right?

Once we were fed and fueled up we decided to adventure to Kanaskat-Palmer park to spend a little time in the great outdoors by the river.

It was nice to be outside in fresh and clean air for a change! That was until a huge spider decided to join us as a guest followed by his friend the bee. I had had about enough of the outdoors by then.. haha

By the evening we were ready to round up the troops and head out for a family dinner at The Ram in Tacoma. We were hoping to be able to sit along the water, but some windy weather prohibited that from happening. It’s alright though. We still had a great time! 

How could you not with this group and this masterpiece to eat though?!

I interrupt today’s blog post for breaking news. Puddles the duck is in NYC, I repeat, Puddles is in NYC! 

You heard me right.. Puddles is the newest duck in the city! Why you may ask? Well, you see Oregon ducks go big places! On a semi-serious note though, Puddles has decided to run for president and is off to meet the people! Because, "America needs a leader who isn’t afraid of not wearing pants." -The Duck. (Click on the link for his official press conference). Puddles means business with his campaign though.. he even has his own website up if you want to look deeper into the issues http://duck2012.com.

You know who I’ll be voting for ;-) Breadcrumbs for all!

Woh, after a little R and R, I’m back to the daily grind and ready to catch up on my blogging. Before I give you all a rundown of my WA and OR trip, I want to finish giving you a wrap-up of my DC trip! Too many cool places not to share! This post, I’m going to run you through some of the historic sites we saw while in DC.

Above you will see a picture of the Department of Treasury! 

This is the church where Lincoln’s family attended.

This is one of my favorite buildings in DC, the Eisenhower Executive Building! Such a beautiful building. I took enough pictures of it to have a post just with those photos! ha.

Here you will find the Ford’s Theatre, where our late president, Lincoln, was assassinated. 

This was an old fountain outside of Union Station. I’ve never been to Europe, but I feel like a lot of the architecture in the city mirrors some of their culture.

Ah ha, the Capitol Building! Another one of my favorites. This building is MASSIVE! You can’t tell from the photo, but wow, it is huge! It was crazy too because there were hardly any people walking around there (minus the protest on the back lawn). We literally walked right on up to it!

While we were in DC, we also ventured across the river into Virginia and visited the Arlington National Cemetery. We learned that over 400,000 (yes you heard right) people are buried there. That’s almost the same number as the whole population of DC! I didn’t take too many pictures here, in honor of those that are at rest, but I did snap a few. This is another place that you really have to see for justice to be served. It’s both eerie, but remarkable at the same time.

Here you will see the Tomb of the Unknowns. Here, there is a guard 24 hours a day, 365 days a year that marches back-and-forth in front of the tomb so that they are never forgotten.

Behind the Tomb of the Unknowns, you meet a huge amphitheater where official dedications and memorials take place throughout the year, most notably on Easter, Memorial Day, and Veteran’s Day.

Finally, here is a shot of the original Post Office. We got stuck in the middle of a rainstorm (understatement of the day) trying to make it from the museums to lunch, but I still got a picture! Donald Trump recently bought the building so I wanted a picture in case he changes it before I get back again.

There’s a small look at some more of the places we went! It was truly such an amazing trip and I am so thankful to have been invited to come!