1 year Anniversary

The long and short of the story is this...We planned the east coast road trip over the summer when there were ridiculously good deals on flights. At that point, I was going to attend the University of Utah, which had a fall break. Two weeks before school started, I was admitted into BYU and decided that was the best school for me. BYU does not have a fall break, but we decided to head to the east coast anyways. (1st semester of grad school and missing a week...problem? I think not.)

And, so our adventure begins...
Our first stop was Atlanta, Georgia to see Chase, Mandi, Sami, and Baby Emma. We flew in Friday night about midnight. Thank you Chase for picking us up, much appreciated! Saturday, we headed to a friends' 3-year old birthday party where there were pony rides, goats, hay rides, and pumpkins. Sami loved the goats, it was hilarious watching her.

Their cute family on the hay ride.

My favorite pic of Sami!

Being messy together.

Our next stop was Tennessee to stay with Nick and Ashley! They own a zip-line company in Gatlinburg! The #1 tourist spot in the United States. It was awesome to go up with Ash and have her explain how it all works. I felt like we were VIP. After finishing the canopy tour, we headed out on the town. We ate yummy food with Nick and Ashley and walked around the "mountain town." HA! The sites in Tennessee were gorgeous! Thanks Ash and Nick!

Nick and Ashley's backyard

Nice form J.

Third stop of the trip, staying with Todd and Kayli in Richmond, Virginia!  Todd was nice enough to take a day off of med school and Kayli to get off work, they were great tour guides of the history of Virginia. We made it out to Maymont Mansion, a very wise old man told us of the history of the house. We were ignorant Utahns, according to the wise old man. haha. We took a tour of the capitol. They took us to a chocolate store that had Ukrainian chocolate!!! We met up with Matt and Natalie Innes and had some great BBQ. The only bummer was the rain, we wanted to do more but could not because it was so wet! We realized that two days in Virginia is not enough, we could spend a week there and take in all the history. 

Innes', Gilberts', and us for BBQ

Maymont House with a butt shot of J.

Next stop was Washington DC! We were warned beforehand that we would not get to see everything that we wanted to, yes, you were all correct. We literally ran around from one tourist spot to the next, but we had fun doing it. Before getting into the city, we stopped at the Pentagon Memorial. We probably looked like terrorists driving around multiple times trying to find a parking spot. We could not find one, so I jumped out and ran with my camera to take a few pictures of the memorial and ran back to the car. We did not look conspicuous at all.

We then headed over to the Air and Space Museum. That was amazing! We spent a good part of the day there taking a ton of pictures. I wish I had a better camera to capture it all.

Model of space ship, it was massive!

As we were driving into the city we passed the Iwo Jima Memorial and decided to make a stop to take some pictures. It is huge in real life. It was neat to be able to see these memorials in real life, although it is humbling to think about what happened in history to merit such a memorial. We are grateful for all those that served valiantly for our country.

We made our way to the National Museum of American History. Noted: allocate enough time in your day for the Smithsonians, we did not. Haha. We ended up running for 15 blocks to try and make an appointment for the Capitol. Needless to say, we did not make it. We were full-on sweating by the time we got there. We would not have gotten in anyways, I had my nalgene water bottle. It, at least, made for a great story. ;) 

Our trip consisted of rain, we were following the storm east. 

His first metro ride!

After the American History Smithsonian and the Capitol we went to the Natural History Museum.  There were kids running around everywhere inside, so we did not stay long. But, it was neat to see everything.

Shark's jaw. J hates sharks. 

Thanks Risa for meeting up with us. 

The cool thing about DC is that you can rent bikes and ride around town. J loved it. We rode over to Georgetown to get a Georgetown cupcake and ended up getting six! YUM! Surprisingly, there was not too long of a line. 

We had to make the required stops in DC such as the WWII Memorial and go see Abraham Lincoln. 

At the WWII Memorial, every state is represented.

Arlington Cemetery; very humbling experience.

Changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Headed up north to NEW YORK!! We had two days to see everything we possibly could, we ran around the city! We loved our time in the Big Apple, but do not see ourselves going back there anytime soon. 

Love my best friend.

A NYC firefighter's tattoo

Look at NYC skyline from the Empire State Building

It was windy.

Eating gelato in Central Park.

Ground Zero

Look at the Statue of Liberty (from afar), we didn't have time to go out and see it.

Our trip was amazing! We covered a lot of ground in 9 days. We are grateful for all of the family and friends that took us in. It was great to see you all!! We hope to make it back to the east coast sometime soon.