First visitors

 

Our first visitors to Virginia were my sister, Katharine, and her husband, Jarey. They flew here all the way from Oregon to spend their Memorial Day weekend with us! They also spent some time with Jarey's brother and sister-in-law, who live just north of D.C. in Silver Spring, MD. One-stop shopping! We are trying to persuade Katharine and Jarey to move out here next year once he finishes his PhD program.

 

Both Katharine and Jarey have been to Washington before, so we didn't do too much sight-seeing. One day we showed them our favorite local park, Hidden Pond Park, and another morning we had a visit from our first cousin, Nikki, who lives in D.C.  We did go to Mount Vernon on Saturday, and I took a few photos of John and Lila with their aunt and uncle before we had our picnic lunch there.

Uncle Jarey is a scientist, so one afternoon when the kids were bored, he showed John and Lila how to do an experiment. I can't remember what kind of experiment it was, but it involved water in our kitchen sink, some plastic baggies and straws. The kids loved it!

More photos of the kids with their aunt and uncle:

A few days after Katharine and Jarey left, our longtime Army friends, the Reclas, stayed the night while en route to their new duty station, West Point. We've known 3-year-old Austin Recla since he was born! Austin has a younger sister, Lauren, who is 3 months younger than Lila. The four kiddos get along fabulously well.

John and Austin:

The kids on the couch, getting ready to eat some popsicles:

We've been fortunate enough to see the Reclas three times in one year, despite the fact that we've been stationed across the country from each other. We're hoping to continue this trend now that they're in New York. Not a bad road trip at all!