Here's an entry for the family. It's cheaper than traveling out to see it in person, I guess. There's no picture of the spare room because we haven't put anything in it but boxes and an ironing board.

Here are a few pictures from the last of the events. The battery on my camera was dead part of the time, so I didn't get any pictures of Arlington National Cemetery or the Museum of Natural History. But I did get a few in the Air and Space museum and the National Gallery of Art. And a couple of Deloreans that we saw on our drive back to KC.

We interrupt this series of the D.C. trip to bring you pictures from our 2nd wedding anniversary. We celebrated by going to McFadden's, an Irish place in town. Our food was really good. Thanks to all the well-wishers who called or sent an e-card. Cheers!

Saturday the 14th was our longest day. We packed a lot of stuff in there. We saw the Washington monument, the World War II memorial, Vietnam memorial, Korean War memorial, and the Lincoln memorial.

The next day we saw the White House, the National Archives, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I put those pictures in this entry by accident, and now I don't want to go back and delete them and reload them into a different entry, so they're staying here. I'm going to make one more post with the rest of Sunday's pictures on it.

Our first day in D.C. didn't live up to its itinerary, but that was OK. There was quite a lot planned for each day, and it was practically inevitable that something would get cut. We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe, where it rocked a little too hard for some of us, but as one person said, "If you're talking about the food, it's OK." One of their treasures was the rare "The Beatles Yesterday and Today" album cover of the band dressed in butchers' coats and draped with dismembered baby dolls and pieces of meat. If you happen to have a vinyl record of "Yesterday and Today" there is a chance that if you peel the front cover off the album sleeve, you'll find this one underneath. It's kind of sick.

Then we went to the Capital building. Interns gave us a tour. The building was cool, and the interns were nice, but they were incompetent as tour guides. They didn't know which way to go most of the time, so we went in circles, we skipped the main spot (the rotunda), and they had almost no information about the things we looked at. We did get to see the room where the House of Representatives meet, though. It took a really long time, but finally we made left and walked around to the front where we could get some pictures of the building itself. As I look at the pictures of us I notice that most have disgruntled looks on our faces. We weren't all upset, it was just bright out. When asked what she liked about the Capital, Erin said, "Today? Absolutely nothing."

We had supper at Ireland's Four Provinces, which Randy was relieved to find wasn't in the ghetto. We even had some live Irish music that suited us all.

Last June 12-15, the Pettits took a family vacation--the first of its kind. A vacation including all the kids and their spouses (or fiance in the case of Ben). Randy and Erin put it together, and they did a great job. We had a good time, though as Katie said, it was a "trip," not a "vacation." The first day we drove to Lancaster, PA and stayed at the Hershey Farm Inn. (It has nothing to do with chocolate. It's Amish.) Just down the street from the inn is the Sight and Sound theater, where plays of Bible stories are performed. There is a smaller theater where the shows are performed in the off season. We went to the show called "Abraham and Sarah" at the smaller theater. Then we drove over to the main theater and took some pictures because it was more worth seeing than the small one. The show was really good and really well done. I was happily surprised by its quality, and I'd recommend it.

On the 4th, Abby (a friend from work), Shell, and I went out to eat at RJ's for some BBQ, then set off some fireworks. It's illegal to set off fireworks where we live. Fortunately, we only live a block away from a place where it IS legal. So we walked over there and set off a bunch of stuff. My favorites were the Twister Sticks that spin on the ground then shoot up into the air. Those, and the ones that shoot out paratroopers. We had one that shot a parachuting mammoth out, but the mammoth landed on top of a nearby building so we never got to see him. After we set off the fireworks, we came to some sparklers in the bottom of the bag. We didn't remember buying them, so we were a little confused, but we figured the fireworks shack must've just been nice. So Shell and Abby tried to light them, but to no avail. Finally they lit, but didn't spark--they smoked. Why did they put incense sticks in our bag? Later we found out that we were doubly stupid when we were told that the sticks were "punks," which I'd never heard of before, but they're supposed to be used to light the wicks of the fireworks so you don't have to mess with a lighter in windy conditions. Afterward, Abby went home and Shell and I walked down the street to watch some real fireworks. For such a little suburb, they did a really good job.

Last weekend we went on a camping trip with Kimberly, Chad, John, and Alisha. Saturday Alisha had to go home for work, and the rest of us met up with Chad's friends Jeb and Nicole and went out on Big Lake with their boat. This was the first time I've been on a motorboat. John and Nicole did some wakeboarding. Pretty much all of us did some knee-boarding and tubing. It was a lot of fun. I wasn't very good at knee-boarding. It was really hard to pull my knees up while keeping the board steady. Finally I was able to stay up for a while on my sixth try. You can tell by the pictures that I was really pushing it. Come to find out, if you straighten your arms (instead of doing what I was doing) you stabilize yourself a lot better. Shell was able to do it on her second try. I was pretty impressed. The batteries in the camera died before we could get any pictures of anyone else on the knee-board or the tube. I had a pretty good wipeout on the tube at about 45 miles per hour. I rolled 3 or 4 times across the water before sinking in. It was awesome. You should've seen it. My second wipe out was not as cool. My shorts came down. Supposedly nobody saw that, though.

Smitley got married! It was a great occasion to see him as well as the Bramers (not pictured), the Havenses, the Ferrells, the Jacksons, and Glen. It's great to be able to pick up right where you left off.

The Swell Season (a.k.a. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the people from the movie Once) came to town last night, and put on quite a good show. Glen Hansard likes to talk--prefacing songs, telling stories of mediums communicating with spirits, telling of their experience roaming around Westport and the Plaza, explaining what it's like to win an Oscar and how it changes one's life. They seemed to be having a great time, and in fact, he said it was the best show they've had on the tour. I must be getting old(er)--my hip and knee hurt after standing in one spot for so long. I can't find the track list anywhere online, so I can't report much on that front. They did play "Falling Slowly," "Once," "If You Want Me," and "All the Way Down."

Before long, the concert will be available online through a website called PlayedLastNight.com or something like that. Interested parties can find the link on the band's MySpace page.

I was trying out our new camera, so not all the shots of our friends turned out the best. Thankfully, I figured out a decent setting for the show itself.