What've we been up to?

Pretty cool, huh? It's not really that big...look, I could touch the top!
Playing tourists!

The entrance to the so-called China Town.

Aaahhhhh....feels good to be connected to the world. This is not going to be too long, since it's 11:00 p.m. and I'm wiped out. We just got to Lancaster, PA after having spent 3 days in our nation's capital.

We had an awesome, although crazy hectic, time. We truly were non-stop from 8 a.m. to 11 pm every day for 3 days.

I want to thank everyone for your messages, emails and prayers!! I speak to the little ones 2-3 times a day and they are doing GREAT! Anna Grace told me today she missed me. And boy! Do I miss them!!!! All of them!!! But, we're enjoying and loving our grownup time. It has taken both of us a couple of days to talk about anything else but the kids. Everytime we see a little one, we comment on how cute they are or how much we miss our little ones. But, time is truly flying by and we're really now starting to relax and enjoy our time together.

As I said earlier, I'm really exhausted so I won't go into details on this post, but I have to tell you that it was waaaaaay cool what happened at the White House. (Nicole, I got your email...maybe it WAS hubby. :) When we arrived on Friday, we checked in to our hotel, which was in one the suburbs of DC, had a great lunch and headed downtown. We decided to go to Chinatown first. Either we totally missed it, or it REALLY was lame. We were so disappointed. I knew not to expect it to be like China, but I was really expecting a Chinatown like New York or San Francisco, since I've been to both. All that I saw that resembled China, with the exception of the Chinese writing on the storefronts, was the big gateway arch. No sidewalk shops, no one selling Chinese foods or items outside of their stores, hec...not many Chinese people even speaking Chinese. We were bummed. STRIKE ONE.

We then hopped on the Metro and headed towards the White House. We noticed the sign that said White House Visitors Center. After a long walk we finally arrived there. Ummm....5 minutes after it closed. Bummed again. STRIKE TWO.

So, we said, "OK. Let's walk over to the White House and take pictures." Mind you it was hot...really hot outside. No breeze. We walk over to the north gate and there is a large crowd of people gathered around. They had stopped traffic and no one could go beyond that point. STRIKE THREE.

Scott said, "Forget it. Let's go back to the hotel." Since it was getting close to 6 pm and we had been up since 5 am. I thought about it, but I said let's wait and see what the hold up is. I worked my way to the front of the crowd and asked the policeman guarding the entry way. He said it was blocked because they were expecting "someone" to arrive. No chance on him telling us who "someone" was. (NOTE: I was secretly hoping it was Kiefer Sutherland...heh!) Everyone assumed it was the president. I said to Scott....come on, let's wait! Finally, he agreed. We stood in the scorching heat for a little under an hour when all of a sudden over the building tops appear 3 helicopters. The middle one carrying GWB himself! That was VERY cool. He landed on the White House lawn and the helicopters took off as quickly as they appeared. Scott was able to video tape it and I took some great pictures. Definitely worth the wait. How many people actually get to experienced that? That made our day. It was also neat to see the extreme security that goes on, plus I'm sure there's tons more behind the scenes that the public doesn't see.

We then took a walking tour of the monuments and memorials and finally dragged our aching feet back to the hotel, ordered room service at 11 p.m. and dropped dead asleep until the next morning.

So, that's my White House story. I will try and get back on here tomorrow since I really want to journal about our trip, especially our visit to the Holocaust Museum and the Franciscan Monastery (thanks, Peg!). Thank you all again for your emails and prayers. They are definitely being heard.

Tomorrow we're off early in the morning to Hershey Park. I have everyone's suggestions written down, including Shoo Fly Pie!

Ily & Mom, thank you a million times over. Kiss my babies for me!!

Amanda, Kai, Anna Grace and AJ......We miss you guys soooooooooooooooo much!!!!! XXXXOOOO!