summer vacation, leg one

On our way to North Carolina last week for our annual summer trip, we first stopped in DC overnight to sightsee a bit and to pick up Rachel. Yes that's right--I was just there. After eight hours in the car and another six from DC, I sure was wishing I had just stayed with Rachel that week. Alas, I sillily thought work would be more important. Ha!

Anyways, we loaded up five people and all our belongings into my mom's van on Thursday and made our way to Washington.

While my aunt and cousin and mom and sister trekked out to visit Rachel at her office and stopped by to see the White House, I stayed inside in the air conditioning and napped alone, needing the me-time after a long, close car ride with four other people. Because, you know, I've seen all that stuff anyway--I do practically live here ;)

Later, we ate pesto and drank wine and went swimming and danced after butterflies on Rachel's rooftop patio (in the 102-degree scorching heat, mind you).

The next day, we sweated our way to some typical hotspots in DC: the Washington Monument, American History Museum, and World War Two Memorial.

We tried to pretend we weren't hot and falling apart as we flew kites on the mall beneath the monument. And then we may have bought some ice cream from a cart to alleviate our parched-ness.

And then we packed into the car for leg two of our trip, Rachel included this time.

Almost there!