A Visit With Michael :)

Jim, Emily and I spent the last weekend of June visiting Michael. Michael lives in Virginia and has been living there for a year and a half now. We see Michael but he usually comes to visit us. We wanted to get a glimpse of his life in Virginia so we decided to go check it out. We had a great visit and I am going to share some of it with all of you :)

Michael lives in Lansdowne, Virginia which is very close to Washington DC so we added a trip to DC as part of our get together. Michael introduced us to the metro and that rode us right into Washington DC. We spent all of Saturday touring those 'oh so famous' monuments and memorials. One thing I noticed about Washington DC is that it is a very clean city. It looks like a movie set, that is how clean it is. We spent the day walking through Washington DC, taking pictures and walking and walking and walking. We walked so much that my legs felt like rubber when the day was over. Michael led us to a place he had been to before for dinner. It was so nice to sit down and enjoy a meal in the air conditioning. Oh, I forgot to tell you that the weather was so hot that day........somewhere in the 90's!!! We took the metro back into Virginia and spent a few hours swimming in the hotel pool. Emily would never allow us to forget about the hotel pool :)))) Swimming, I think is one of her reasons for existence :))))

Sunday, we visited Michael's church and met some of his friends. His church is so beautiful and welcoming. I really enjoyed it and his friends were very open to us and very welcoming as well :) We did have a little excitement after services but I wont get into that.........the possibility of embarrassment is there and Jim would kill me (oops.........I almost spilled the beans :) It was a small, little fender bender in the parking lot of the church (oops, did I say that?).....and Jim was driving.......oh my goodness, I think I said too much :))))) It was a very small scrape and it held us up a little but no worries. The other person who was hit was not concerned at all because the car they were driving was soon to be passed on to their college bound daughter. They said that they expect this car to get a few bumps and bruises so they wouldn't take anything from us. Wasn't Jim lucky????!!! I think so :))) And MY car, yes, you heard me correctly, MY car only had a small scrape on it and isn't too much to have it repaired :)))) I am expecting it home today all back to it's beautiful self :))) After that we enjoyed a lunch with Michael and all of his friends. It was refreshing to sit with all of these young people and be a part of their day :) Lunch was finished and we headed over to Michael's apartment to spend some time in his pool :)))) Yes, more swimming :) Michael has a great little apartment and it has plenty of amenities that are all very nice. The pool was beautiful and a great way to just relax and cool off. We ended our visit with a visit to Jim's cousin Eddie's. Eddie and Gina, his wife, live 5 minutes from Michael. They opened their home to us and had a meal waiting for us. It was a fun time for everyone.

We enjoyed being in Michael's environment and spending time with him :) I look forward to doing it again and next time I want to see the Smithsonian Museum. We didn't have time for that this time but hope to next time. I haven't been to that museum in so long and from what I remember it was a pretty amazing place to see :)

I included some of the photo's I took while on our visit.............I will give a little explanation for each photo..........Take a look!!!

We started each day at the IHOP :))) How could we not????

Here is Michael being silly :)

The Metro....and if you look close you can see Jim, Emily, and Michael's reflections.

Jim and Emily riding the metro............Jim very happy to have his new GPS who we call Jill :)

First stop.......The White House.....This is as close as we could get to it. We asked if they give tours and they said yes but it takes about 6 months to get clearance for it :) No grand tour for us :)

Second stop the bench outside of the White House and Emily was already getting tired (haha).........we have a long and hot walking day ahead of us.

A White House Fire Hydrant!!! I really was surprised it was green........thought it would be white :) I took this for my dad because he likes to see these :) *just kidding*

A close up of the Lincoln Memorial..........that place was packed. The steps to go up were probably 50 steps and everyone was racing inside because it looked like it was going to rain. I am sure there are that many people visiting there even if the rain isn't coming. A popular memorial :)

This is the view of the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial with the reflection pool in between. It was really beautiful!!

This is what I really wanted to visit........the Vietnam Memorial Wall. It is very amazing to see. Sooooooooooooooo many names and the way it reflects everything is so pretty. This is me in the reflection here :)

Another view of the wall............

Emily and Michael having fun in the hotel pool :))))

We loved Virginia :)