Ahhh, Virginia in
August. The only things worse are mosquitoes
(see fishing post), the third Spider-man movie and the Dutch. So when my brothers decided to visit for a
week, it was a bright spot in what had been a hot and muggy month. My brothers are 11 and 13 years younger than
me, which means we spent a good chunk of time apart. Last time we spent a full week together, I was
a better video game player and I could wrestle them both at the same time while
watching Beast Wars together. Although
I'm willing to bet I could take those skinny punks on one-on-one, I now sit in
awe at their hand-eye-controller coordination as they master every game I own
in a day. Needless to say, a reunion
with my brothers was way overdue.
The thing is, they're
not just brothers any more, they're uncles.
Much like when the cousins were coming into town, for days Brynn went
around yelling, "My uncles are coming, my uncles are coming!" while
Jonah followed along closely behind bellowing loudly mainly just because it
looked like fun. They were right to be
excited. Over the next six days, we had
a great time swimming, seeing the sights and answering the question
"Why?" exactly 4,273 times.
We wasted no
time. After they travelled for 15 of 21
hours, we fed them some delicious Peruvian Chacoal Chicken, got a good night's
sleep and headed downtown. We decided
the best way for the DC rookies to see the sites would be to head to the
Smithsonian Mall. Between 9:00 and 4:30,
we visited the Spy Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of
American History and the Air and Space Museum, walking/swimming our way between
air conditioned venues. Joey and I would
be cruising through the museum then look up and realize we'd left Jonathan
about 10 exhibits back. Taking Jonathan
was like taking a 75 year old man to the museum. He wanted to read every single detail of
every single exhibit. We had to remind
him that we had four museums to visit and at 982 exhibits over the four
museums, this only gave us about 76 milliseconds per exhibit (please don't
check my facts or math). Needless to
say, we skipped a few things.... We got
back and shared a great meal with Jenn and the kids, then watched Olympics and
made mildly racist jokes about other cultures.
Mainly the Chinese, though Canada definitely came up. Good times.
Thursday we went to
our favorite spot to take visitors: Mount Vernon. After all the times we've been so far this
year, this one was the first time I finally got to tour the actual home in
peace. Two squirrely kids doesn't lend
itself to taking a quiet tour of a 250 year old estate. Last time we went, Jenn took the tour while I
watched the kids and this time we switched places so know we've each finally
been able to take in George Washington's home and all the great history
surrounding it. We did our routine: pet
the lambs, threw rocks in the Potomac and walked all around the grounds. In August though, surrounded by a 90 percent
humidty cloud and, this walk isn't as fun as usual. Jonathan took pity on us
and helped push the stroller up the last hill as we decided that rather than
explore more of Mount Vernon, we would rather head to the pool next to our house
before lunch. It's not historic,
non-protected, and built this century, but amazing nonetheless. We played some video games during naptime and
then had to head south to drop them off to spend a couple days with Steph and
Peter. I blacked out most of this trip,
but suffice to say I travelled 90 miles in 3.5 hours. I punched the rental car once….maybe twice.
On Saturday, the
boys, Steph and Peter showed up around noon, with plans of going to Camden
Yards. This was going to be the very first
time at Camden Yards for Peter and me, and we’d been talking about doing this
ever since we told them we’re coming to Virginia. I brushed up on my gang etiquette by watching
The Wire, then we all headed into Maryland for the game. We were greeted by something worse than stray
bullets: rain. For the next three hours
it poured down rain.
We eventually gave up, hearing on the radio that after a three and a
half hour delay, they were going to play the game. A memorable first trip, but exactly what we’d
had in mind.
 |
| Taking shelter inside a Jimmy John's from the Baltimore downpour. |
Sunday, we had a nice
breakfast, said goodbye to the Lovegroves and did one last sight-seeing trip in
downtown with the boys. They’re huge
WWII buffs, so we went to visit the WWII and surrounding memorials/monuments. No trip to downtown DC would be complete
without a stop at Ben’s Chili Bowl and even though I embarrassed them with this
photo, they didn’t regret it at all. We
worked off our chili and then some seeing the White House, and the Korean, WWI,
Vietnam and Lincoln memorials. We headed
home and played with the kids for the rest of the night, which Brynn and Jonah
loved. We watched the closing ceremonies
of the Olympics, made more mildly racist comments and fell asleep very easily.
The next morning came
early as they had the 6:00 flight out of Reagan. We left the house at 4:15 in the morning and
the boys travelled for the next 17 hours as only a 19 and 21 year old kids
can. God Bless them. We had a bro-tastic time catching up and it
only served to make me even more homesick for Colorado/Wyoming.
