A Whirlwind Trip

Elaine's parents, Gary and Lorene Christensen, flew in from Portland, Oregon, for a five-day visit starting on April 11th.  It was good timing, since the cherry blossoms were still in bloom.  We picked them up from the airport in DC and took them right over to the new Martin Luther King Memorial, since it was a good place to see the cherry blossom trees on the tidal basin.  Kent and I had never actually walked around the memorial, so it was something new for us, too.

Kent has a few other shots of him in picturesque locations looking out from a tree, so he recreated the scene with the cherry blossom trees.

Mom and Dad came in on a Thursday, and on Friday morning I took them to Mount Vernon, which they hadn't seen in over 40 years.

 It rained on and off while we were there for several hours.  The picture below was taken during a break in the rain.

On Saturday morning we went inside the gates onto the White House grounds for the semi-annual event when the grounds are open to the public.  It happens once in the spring and once in the fall.  Mom was disappointed that there weren't more flower gardens around the White House.  She was NOT impressed--noting that it was mostly just lawn with some trees.

 This fountain is on the White House grounds.  At least there are some tulips in bloom!  You can see in the background that the Washington Monument is getting covered in scaffolding to repair the damage that happened during the earthquake that hit DC a year and a half ago.

 After leaving the White House we took Mom and Dad around Arlington National cemetery, where we watched the changing of the Guard ceremony.

 On Sunday after church (we have 8:30am church) we drove to Hershey, Pennsylvania, to go to Chocolate World.  We looked around and went on the free ride, but didn't buy anything in the shop or spend any money.

 After going to Chocolate World we drove around the town of Hershey, "The town that Chocolate built."  There were some cute features, like the hershey kiss lights.  (Still can't get blogger to put the vertical pictures in the right direction.  Don't know why.)

 I don't know who gets to ride in the "Kissmobile" but it was fun to see.

 The next day, Monday, we headed over to Gettysburg.

 We went to the visitor's center there, where my parents were very impressed with the cyclorama.  It's a huge circular painting that was done in 1884 to show the major events of the Battle of Gettysburg.  The fairly new visitor's center was built to showcase this historic cyclorama.

 On the edge of the Gettysburg Battlefield is the Eisenhower home, where Pres. Eisenhower retired to after his eight years as president.  Kent and I had just listened to a book on CD about those years, so we enjoyed seeing the actual home.

We packed lots into those five days, but I think my parents really enjoyed everything we did.  Their next stop was up to Boston to vist my sister on the day after the Boston Marathon bombing, so they didn't get much chance to get out and do things up there.  They had several days to relax and recover from their time in Virginia!

Good Times in March and April with our Delightful Family in the Northern States

On March 28th I flew to Minneapolis to visit the Lee family for a long Easter weekend.  It didn't take long for Sophia to warm up to me.  We kept busy and went somewhere every day. 

 

 We went to the local zoo.  I'm not sure Sophia understood the concept of looking at the animals, but she had fun toddling around.  Sophia doesn't look very excited in this picture! 

 Sophia chillin' in her car seat with her cute boots.

 Sophia hanging out with most of her favorites: hat, binky, blanky, stuffed kitty, and milk.

 We went to St. Paul and toured the mansion of James Hill, one of the early owners of a railroad company.  The home cost almost a million dollars when it was built over 100 years ago, so it was very large and fancy inside.

 Sophia did pretty well on the tour, considering her age and desire to run around!

We took Sophia to the Easter egg hunt at the the apartment complex where they live.

 Sophia likes to help in the kitchen.

 We dyed Easter eggs,

 then had an Easter egg hunt. Sophia caught on to the concept of looking for the eggs pretty quickly.

 The Lee family after church on Easter Sunday.

 A three generation shot. 

 Here's Sophia looking at the "Colors" quiet book I made for her on her first birthday.

 Chillin' with her cool sunglasses on our way to the Mall of America.

 Sophia and I keeping ourselves amused while Mommy was trying on clothes at a store in the Mall of America. ( It's kind of hard to tell what we're doing, but I'm taking a picture into a mirror.)

 I believe it was Sophia's first time going on amusement park rides.  It didn't take her long to get the hang of it and think it was lots of fun.

The Mall of America is close to the Minneapolis airport, so after we went to the mall, Adri dropped me off at the airport to fly to visit Garrett and Krystal's family in Minot, ND.  They still had an amazing amount of snow on the ground, considering it was April! 

 Makayla was only about seven weeks old the last time I saw her, so she's changed a lot.  I enjoyed getting to know her.

 The first time he saw me Daniel hugged me and said, "Hi Grandma".  It's nice when they're old enough to remember you between visits!!

 Daniel is a cuddly little guy--one of his favorite spots was curled up on his daddy.

 Makayla isn't quite old enough to be a good playmate for Daniel yet, but she will be soon.

 It was neat to see another generation of Carsons using the coffee table to hold on to as they learn to walk.  We had this table when our kids were young and gave it to Garrett and Krystal when they were first married.

 We watched all four sessions of General Conference.  I thought this was a sweet picture of Makayla and Daniel watching Conference. 

 Every child seems to love sitting inside things, and Makayla is no exception.

 One of the few times Makayla let me hold her.  She mostly just wanted her mommy.

 Daniel and I went for a walk to get the mail in the snow one day.

 Makayla was quite delighted with the "Johnny Jump Up"

 Such a wonderful little family.

 This was the first picture of the kids with me that we took.  In subsequent photos Makayla is starting to cry and reach for her Mommy.  I didn't take it personally.  It isn't too many years before kids figure out that Grandmas are pretty nice to have around.

Daniel cuddling with Daddy again.

 Daniel certainly liked having me around and the extra attention he got from Grandma!

 In all I spent five days in Minnesota and five days in North Dakota.  It was delightful to visit both families, and the time went by much too quickly.  It's amazing how fast the grandchildren are growing up!