Our mini vacation

We were going to go to the beach. But it rained 7 inches on the two days we planned to go. So we altered plans and went to DC instead. We realize it doesn't look rainy in DC. It wasn't! It was gorgeous! Too bad the beach didn't look like this....

First stop: The National Portrait Gallery and Museum of American Art. We went on our first date here, and hadn't been back. It's so fun! Above, the preamble on license plates. 

Lydia loved climbing. She did a remarkably good job for being a kid who loves to touch everything. (I think that's all kids...)

Me and my BFF.

The floors in the American Art side were gorgeous!

We took a really similar photo on our first date. :)

After the museum, we hit up some Jazz in the Sculpture Garden. Lydia really liked it. :)

And then wandered over to The Mall. End of Day One. 

And now for your random photo of the post: proof that Lydia likes her chair. 

Andrew took another day off the next week, but it rained again at the beach. (It's tricky to say, "well, let's just go tomorrow," because Andrew schedules about 50 meetings a day. So if he wants to take a day off, he'll hold that day a few weeks in advance and not schedule any meetings. So we have to look pretty far in the future to reschedule things.) Rain, meant that we went back down to DC. In all the years we've been here, we'd never been to Mt. Vernon. We are now annual season pass holders, so let us know if you want to go! We'd love to join you!

7-11 stop for the drive home, on 7-11.

Another adventure, and what do you know? More rain!

This time we decided to try to go for a hike. It wasn't pouring, and it was pretty cool, so we figured this weather was better than 100 degrees and 100% humid. 

We got out to the State Park, and they were filming "House of Cards" (a Netflix original :)

Proof it was raining.

The crew behind us. 

On overlook at the falls.

Extras from the filming. I'm totally confused about the need for 19th century civil war extras. I was pretty sure House of Cards was set in modern times? But when we tried to ask questions, they couldn't answer because of non-discloure agreements. 

And then we played some games, to round out our rained-out vacation. Seemed like a fitting thing to do. :)