Mom and Dad's Exciting Adventure

I'd like to think that ALL of my parents' visits to see us are memorable and exciting.  We're fun, right?  And I think our kids are pretty cute.  We usually try to find interesting things to do when they come to visit.  But I suppose it's going to happen that some trips rank higher on the exciting scale than others.  I think this last trip will be right  up there near the top.  (Click HERE for a slideshow or click any of the photos)

To start things off right, we packed up and went to the National Mall.  Saw the sights.  Took some pics.  Had a celebrity sighting (Bob Dole).  Visited the National Museum of Natural History and saw lots of neat-o things.  Stopped at the Air Force Monument on the way home.  Whew!  That was a big day.




Then we hit the National Zoo.  We accidentally broke a few laws while trying to park, but then had a great time visiting all of the animals.  The zoo is located on a pretty good sized hill.  We got our workout that day, for sure.



Next up (cue the excitement):  a Pentagon tour for Mom and Dad while the kiddos and I went to the pool.  I dropped them off at the Metro rail station and they took the train into the city like a couple of locals.  I'm sure their tour would have been interesting enough, but then they experienced our 5.8 mag earthquake -- in the middle of their tour!  Some folks would have fled the building in terror, remembering that the building was attacked nearly 10 years ago.  My mom, however, is not one to be discouraged from sight-seeing, and they finished up the last hour of their tour (heehee - just kidding, Mom.  Most of the Pentagon folks continued with business-as-usual so they finished up their tour).  None of us Shea/Dermodys had experienced an earthquake before, so I'm sure they won't forget that tour any time soon!  Phil helped them take the Metro bus home because the rail was not operating efficiently after the quake.  After navigating two forms of public transport, they are officially more seasoned DC travelers than I am.

We also made it to the Udvar-Hazy Museum, which is part of the National Air and Space Museum.  And by "part" I mean the really super-cool part.  There we saw the Space Shuttle Enterprise, an SR-71, the B-29 Enola Gay, and lots of other really neat air and spacecraft.

Then we got to come home and start bracing for the other exciting event: Hurricane Irene.  As we know now, it ended up being nothing more than a pretty good storm in our neck of the woods.  But the forecasters weren't sure how it would go so we stocked up on a few things and prepped our house and yard for heavy winds.  Some friends of ours were evacuated from their house in Dover, DE, so they came to join our little pre-hurricane party too.  We considered buying the makings for "hurricane" drinks, but instead made do with some margaritas and beer.  The next night our friends moved on to another friend's house and the Dermody/Shea clan took to the basement to weather the storm.  We have some REALLY big oak trees with questionable root structures in our backyard and I really wanted as much house as possible between us and them if one decided to fall! 

Fortunately we weathered the storm just fine, though a nice generator is back on our to-buy list (I can't believe we never bought one when we lived in Altus!).

And during their visit my mom found time to do a sewing lesson for the girls and Dad helped them ride their bikes.  Mom did a bunch of crafts with the kiddos.  They even had a grown-up craft this time for us -- we made a bench!  (And by "we" I mean Phil and my parents - haha).

After the storm we were blessed with some beautiful weather, so we checked out the ruins of the Belvoir Plantation on Ft. Belvoir and relaxed a bit (which means we planted a bunch of daylilies in the front and back yards!)  before my parents had to make their way back to Illinois.



They had no idea what they were signing up for when they planned this trip!  But they took the earthquake and hurricane in stride, and they even promised to come back for another visit soon.  Love you, Gramma and Pawpaw!

Sitting on the new bench!