Smith Time!

So, yes, while I was off camping in West Virginia with all the Young Women, Craig's brother Jason arrived at our house!  (This was why I didn't manage to drag Craig along with us!)  Jason got in Friday afternoon, and then his daughter Lindsy and her husband Brayden got in that evening.  Kamryn and Connor flew in Saturday evening, and Sunday night Jeni, Maya, and Eli all arrived (they'd been at a wedding in Washington)-- that alone was logistically complicated!  And that was just the beginning!

They all enjoyed the goats at Yoder's without me (sniff, sniff-- Craig didn't even buy me a baby goat!):

You can buy goat food and then put it on these little pulleys so that they'll go up on their raised platforms!

Like so!

Although having a goat above your head seems like kind of a bad idea...?

We get excited about all chickens, not just ours!

Pretty peacock!

See???  Why wouldn't Craig get me one???  Baby goats are the cutest!

I got home from the YWs campout and had almost enough time to put everything away and shower before they came back.  I got to say Hi to Jason, Lindsy, and Brayden, and then most of us piled into the van to pick up Kamryn and Connor from the airport!

And it turned out Kamryn and Jason were matching!!!

They all came to church with us that day (fueling rumors that Craig was being released, but alas, that was not the case) and we all hung out and enjoyed one another's company.  And the rest of the crew-- Jeni, Maya, and Eli-- all arrived much later on Sunday, fresh from a wedding in Washington and most of them spent the evening in Culpeper.

The next morning, we all met up in DC!  Since you never know what the traffic situation is going to be, we arrived pretty early.  Craig dropped us off and circled around until our parking garage opened.  So we went to the WWII Memorial, and it was really lovely.

Yay, Puerto Rico!

And then Jeni had gotten tickets for all of us to visit the Washington Monument, which I had never done before, so that was super cool!

We realized that Bentley and Brayden were matching!

My beautiful children {sigh}

Nice view of the Jefferson Memorial

So we clearly enjoyed that immensely!  We had tickets later for the Air & Space Museum, but we had time to kill, so we got food from the food trucks and then wandered into the Modern Art Museum.  

Now, Modern Art isn't exactly my thing, but despite that, I still reverted to my usual state in any art museum and ran around excitedly trying to see everything.  So there's that!

A Banksy!!!!

Based on a painting by Basquiat!  

There were a few Picassos and this really intense Bird Room that you honestly have to experience to believe.  It was a lot, but I was more interested in it than I would have believed.  

I didn't get to finish before it was our time at the Air and Space Museum, so we headed out.  I should have stayed-- the Air & Space Museum is great, but I've been there before and I was enjoying the art!  

By the time we got to the final museum, I was just kind of wilting.  I was coming off of the campout and was still really exhausted, and the all the walking and the heat and humidity did me in.  I wandered around constantly looking for seating and wishing I could take a nap.  I was lame.  Everyone else had a great time, though!

And then we went to the Olive Garden in Manassas and Craig's parents joined us there-- table for 17!  I was impressed with how they managed to fit us around several tables and the food was great.  And it was so nice to just sit in a padded chair for a bit!

That is a LOT of people!

We were planning on hitting the Moo-Thru next, but when Craig looked them up on Google Maps, it said they were closed, so that was sad.  We drove by our old house and were shocked to find that they had painted it charcoal grey!!!

They even painted the chimney!!!

I'm so impressed with their front lawn and all the plants!  Also, they added that triangle roof thing over the front door, which looks nice!  But I think the charcoal look is weird.  Sorry-- that's not fair.  It actually looks kind of cool, it just doesn't match any of the other houses in the neighborhood now, so that's kind of lame.  Oh, well, whatever.  It was weird to see it looking so different.

Next we drove by our old apartment on Orchid Court (Kendra's birth place!) and the kids were horrified by how small it was.  We thought it was so big compared to the place we'd had in Provo!

And then we dropped in and visited Betsy for a few minutes, which was lovely, but I felt bad that we were so tired and couldn't stay longer.  And then we finally began driving home.  And as I was driving past the Moo-Thru I realized it was open after all!!!!  So I managed to brake really hard and turn into it and we all got ice cream.  And that was the best ending to the day ever, although I did feel really bad that the other Smiths had all missed out.  Why did Google Maps lie to us?!?!?!?!

Yay for cows, that give us milk, which makes us ice cream, which makes us happy!

The next day the Smiths went back into DC and saw the Holocaust Museum and a bunch of the memorials.  We opted to stay home-- we can only handle so much of that city.  And the driving to and from it.  Ugh.  Craig and I went to the temple instead!

This is sunset lighting, we're not actually that red!

And then it was the 4th of July!  We made pulled pork for everyone and in the morning, Craig made red white and blue pancakes, which made me laugh:

It's turned sideways, but he actually arranged them vaguely like a flag!

We mostly hung out and a lot of people were busy playing Magic: the Gathering. 

And in the evening we went to the pool for a bit:

Here's the whole gang!

And then we watched the fireworks that they set off Carter Mountain from our neighborhood, so that was pretty sweet!

No one knew I was taking this picture, so no one is actually looking at the camera...

So that was super fun!  I love the 4th of July!!!  They all flew out the next day-- we were sad to see them go!  Come any time, Smiths!!!