Where's... Leah?

Whew! I think I'm back. Ugh, speaking of back, I've hurt mine. And I hurt it worse last night by BENDING instead of squatting to pick up some trash I knocked over. It's something that you don't even think twice about...

Here's how to fly with quilts:

I really don't trust airlines enough to put a quilt in the luggage, it has to go on my carry-on or not at all! So I did some super tight bed-rolling. I wasn't worried about wrinkles cuz both of them would be getting washed before being used.

Saturday I landed in San Jose, California. My dad was a few minutes late, but we played a joke on my mom and he was calling her up, telling her that he was late. (Yes, I was sitting in the car trying not to laugh!) Then he told her that he couldn't find me. Then I was found, but my luggage was missing. Finally the last call about 5 minutes before the house was "well, we finally got Leah and her luggage, we're on our way home." And so when I went upstairs to find my mom, she was snoozing, not expecting me for another 20 minutes! :D

Sunday and Monday were lots of shopping. And a little pestering for grandkids from my dad. ;) I got some great shoes at REI after trying on at least a dozen pairs. 2 new capri's. A new shirt and pair of shorts. Now I could go to Washington DC and not worry about clothes!

Tuesday night we flew out for a red-eye flight. This is how my baby sister and brother entertained themselves:

I tried to nap as much as possible! I think I got 2-3 hours that night. Cuz once we landed in DC, we hit the road running!

Speaking of running, I brought my new tennis with me and they did great! My feet never hurt (only fell asleep on the plane) and I didn't get any sore spots or blisters.

And I put my shoes through a lot! Like 5+ miles of walking in DC, a couple miles of biking and general all day wear.

Wednesday was spent mostly in the car. We did stop by Gettysburg for a bit before picking up Pops from the train station. Then we had the pleasure (not!) of trying to get out of DC and down to Virginia to pick up my other sister at another train station, not far from our hotel.

Thursday we did a walking tour of DC, starting with the Washington Memorial. When we were trying to leave the train station in DC on Wednesday, we saw the WM, and I was so tired and confused I couldn't remember what it was called, so I just said "hey! Look, it's the tall building." :D

Here's everybody but me. My parents went off to rent a scooter for Pops, so us kids and Pops hung around the WM while we waited for the scooter. Surprisingly, somebody handed Pops a ticket for free to go to the top of the WM! He tried to pawn it off to one of us kids, but we were like nope! It's yours. He went. :)

While waiting, both for the scooter and Pops to finish his ride, I had my sister take my picture of me with the White House on the right of my shoulder. Sis said it's a lot smaller than most people realize.

Wished I had sunglasses! Sometimes my eyes were so bothered by the sun as I posed for pictures that they'd water up and run down my cheeks.

Here's Pops scooting along. He can go as fast or a slow as he wanted. Dad ran ahead to take Pops' picture in the scooter and Pops started to seriously speed up. We were like "run, Dad! Run!" :)

But actually, he was pretty good about staying with us, usually in the back. I'm really glad we got the scooter for him though, with his heart complications, he just wouldn't have been able to keep up.

The rest of Thursday was spent checking out other famous places, pictures taken and finally lunch. I was starving! Then afterwards my baby sister and brother took off on a tandem bike. Sarah said she was very happy to be in the back, it was scary trying to bike in DC with all the buses pulling in and out everywhere. Andrea went to the Native American Museum, Dad and Pops went to the Air and Space Museum and Mom and I wanted to go to the American History Museum, that's where we figured the quilts would be. Alas, it was closed for renovations. So we checked out the Natural History Museum, mostly the gemstone stuff.

Then we all met at the Air and Space Museum to see a movie. I'm afraid all three girls fell asleep. We might have been up a little late chatting the night before. :D

Friday we went back to Gettysburg for a "real" tour, instead of a quick peek like on Wednesday. Here I am with the rifles.

I almost got to go to Intercourse, PA! See, Dad, Pops and Andrea went on a bus tour of Gettysburg, and the rest of us went biking around GB. Seeing that we were only 1.5 hours away from the famous Zooks quilt shop, I was going to try to see if we could go after the bus tour ended at 4:30. So I had my sister call, but turns out that they close at 5pm. Oops! Not gonna happen. But I was THIS close. ;)

Saturday we went to see Thomas Jefferson's house, Monticello.

I really liked the pond and gardens. We didn't have too much time to explore though, and Sarah actually ended up missing the shuttle and we had to wait another 15 minutes to meet up with her.

We had dinner that night with Andrea and her friend Jeremy. Yup, 8 full grown ups in a 7-seater van. We put my brother on the floor. ;)

Sunday (yes, mother's day!) was the graduation. My camera really didn't like the lighting, but I managed to get this fairly good shot of my sister as she was walking to get her diploma.


Here's all of the family in front of Andrea's dorm. I'm short in this picture! I'm happy. :D

Really, I'm the third shortest. Only Mom and Sarah are shorter, the rest are all over 6 feet tall. :) We went to a really cool Japanese steakhouse where they cooked in front of you and gave you a nice show. Not to mention it was good food too. :)

Here's Andrea checking out the quilt, given the night before I left. Yes, we're a little slow on celebrating stuff sometimes. Like... we did Mother's Day on the 16th instead of the 13th. But Mom got a 5-spool serger! She's thrilled. :)

Dad really likes this quilt, he ranks it up with Pops' dog quilt. Hopefully she'll use it and it'll provide some warmth as Andrea gets her Masters in New York.

I'll have to continue later, I haven't even got to the dyeing or the quilt we started! :)

Leah