Our DC Home

While visiting the exciting city of Washington DC we rented the most charming townhouse to house all 13 of us for the week.  It was a little ways outside of the city center and was in the middle of a line up of other colored walk ups.  Our little home was a dark olive green with a bright red door and a classy, black, wrought iron staircase, it was a lovely sight to come home to at the end of every, event filled day.

The interior was the perfect blend of classic and modern architecture.  I loved the exposed brick walls, the white moldings and the modern art accents.

The dining room was the perfect place to gather for meals, games, puzzle building, and good old conversations.

The top floor was all bedrooms, this was my cozy little room.  My room was the smallest of all the rooms, all the other bedrooms were quite spacious and lovely.  Don't get me wrong, I loved my adorable little space, it was the perfect size for me and was very charming with a wonderful view out of the front of the house.  Will, Thomas and Ben slept on the couch downstairs that had a pull out bed in the base, Andrew and John slept in the middle bedroom upstairs, Karin, Ricky and baby James had the far bedroom, mom and dad had the room next to mine and Beth and Reece stayed in the private apartment downstairs.  It was absolutely the perfect house for all of us!

It was so nice to all go home together at the end of the day and have multiple common areas to gather in to watch movies or just hang out.  Staying in a hotel is always hard for us since we all have to try and squeeze into someone's room if we want to play games or something in the evening.  We have rented houses on other vacations and have loved this alternative to a hotel, not to mention it is a lot cheaper then getting a bunch of hotel rooms.  Our most memorable house rental was in Santa Barbra click HERE and HERE to see pictures from that amazing property.

We also stayed in a fun house on the Oregon coast click HERE to see the fun details of that rental home.  And to see the backyard of that wonderful property click HERE

Arizona in the Spring

This past March, mom, dad and I went down to Arizona to spend a couple days in the sun with the Burton bunch before we all headed to Washington DC for spring break.  Arizona is absolutely gorgeous this time of year, the flowers are blooming, the sun is shining in the clear blue sky, and it's the most pleasant temperature.

It is always so fun to hang out with the Burton's at their home, there is always something fun going on!  I love watching all the brothers interact and play with each other.  I was excited to always have at least two or three boys to play some basketball with in the drive way.  I love to play all bball games, especially dynamite but rarely have enough players around for a nice long game, so we had tons of fun enjoying the sun and some friendly competition.

On our first morning, Karin, dad, Thomas, James and I went for a nice, long walk.  We walked to this park that has tons of these adorable owls all along the trail

After our walk I accompanied Karin and Thomas, along with mom and James to Thomas' preschool Spring picnic.  We all had tons of fun picking oranges and grapefruit from all the trees in the backyard of his teacher's house.  I was amazed by how much fruit was on all the trees, no wonder everyone from Arizona loves their orange trees so much!

I made friends with this adorable golden retriever, she was so sweet and playful

That night we all got dessert from the Arizona Waffle Love truck.  I am obsessed with waffle love and am so excited they have a truck in Arizona!  And I love that is it close to my sister's house so she and her boys can enjoy the love as well!

The next day after all the boys got home from their last day of school before spring break we all went out for some scrumptious hawaiian ice and to see the Lego Movie, which is totally hilarious! I was laughing the whole way through that movie.

Thomas got his rainbow ice "shark attack" style, I thought it was so adorable with all it's gummy sharks!

That night we watched a super fascinating documentary on the Hope diamond since we will be seeing it at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.  Then we watched Apollo 13 and taste tested some astronaut food in preparation for going to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. 

 I admire my mom and Karin's ability to make learning so much fun for their children and grandchildren.  My mom always prepped us with tons of fun activities to learn all about things we were going to see in museum's before we would go on our european adventures, and it made it so much more exciting to see things we had learned about.  Karin does the same for her children, it was so fun to see how excited all her boys were to see the Hope Diamond a few days later after learning all about it.  

The next day we all packed up and headed to the airport to fly to DC!  Because the airport was so so busy we all missed our flight and had to wait a few hours in the airport until there was another flight that could accommodate all 11 of us.  The boys and I had THE BEST time playing all sorts of fun card games.  They had such a blast playing go fish, they were getting all sorts of silly with that game and I totally loved it!  I was grateful for that bonding time with them and didn't mind the wait at all.

Finally we all boarded the plane and made our way to Washington DC!  The posts from that excited adventure are coming up next!