DC trip

 We went to DC to visit my dad.  We also sepent a lot of time hanging out with cousins.  

On the 4th of July we attended a breakfast with my childhood homeward and my dad even initiated going.  In the past he declined invitations but he started going a couple of years ago.  That was nice.  After breakfast we took a quick metro trip into the city and the parade was still going on.  We drove over to P's friend M's house and had a BBQ then over to Aunt R's house for more BBQ and pool time followed by fireworks at a local park.

The zoo was fun. Cousins V and X were very sweet and good travelers.  They stayed with my making it really fun and easy to manage.  I carried a camelback with 2 water bags, one for each family, and many bags of snacks.  The weather was surprisingly nice and the crowd was very small.  Having been to the zoo many times, I was very pleasantly surprised.

We were only there for 3 days but it was packed with outings and family time. We went to great falls one night and enjoyed beautiful scenery and a nice long hike with the children.  We stayed until it was dark!

Traveling with just 3 older kids is surprisingly easy.  We drove home on Saturday and had enough time to take a detour along the skyline drive.  I'm grateful for P looking out for little extra moments of beauty for us to enjoy.

I was able to get a lot of studying done. P was listening to youtube videos for his AP computer science certification.  I was listening to youtube lectures of my classes.  LP was reading a book series on the kindle.  B and L took turns playing the switch and on ipads.  So technology and entertained.  We never had this sort of luxury when the 5 kids were taking road trips before.  I'm grateful for each season we've enjoyed with the children.