Washington, DC

Jim had a work conference / training in DC (actually in Arlington, VA) for a week, and Colleen and Avery decided to join for the week and ride up!  It was Avery's first time out of NC, and she got to visit VA, DC, and MD.

During the day, Jim went to his classes and Colleen / Avery hung out at the hotel.  In the evenings and nights however, we all hung out and got to see the City!

We went to a couple museums.  The first museum we went to on Monday was the "Newseum", a museum dedicated to the history of news and media.  Here is a nice family pic with a view from the 5th floor balcony of the Museum, with the capitol in the background:

The next night we took a bus ride on an open-topped double-decker bus, and got to see all the monuments / buildings lit up a night, such as the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, WWII Memorial, the Capitol, etc.  It was very beautiful at night out and beautiful city lit up a night!

The next night we went down to the riverfront in the Georgetown neighborhood and dinner by the Potomac River while the Georgetown University crew boat team practiced/trained in the river behind us

Avery enjoyed the beautiful weather that evening

Then we took a boat tour of the Potomac!

Then we walked the quaint streets of Georgetown and had dessert/coffee before heading back to the hotel

The next night we met our friends Mike and Lisa (who live nearby in Silver Spring, MD) for dinner at a nice steak house.  Then on Friday afternoon we went to the Museum of Crime and Punishment before having dinner again in Georgetown and driving home.  Overall it was a fun trip, and Avery was so well behaved.  She was quiet in all the museums and loved riding the Metro around town!

Dahlem / Bounds beach Vacation

The last week of July we rented a beach house in Kure Beach, NC.  Lindsay and Aaron Bounds flew in from Albuquerque with their 14 month old daughter Emerson to join us.

Before we headed out from Raleigh to Kure Beach, Jim read a book to Avery:

And Lindsay got some good bonding time with the Avery:

Once we arrived at the beach house we put Avery into her swimsuit and got ready for the beach

We had a nice beach pop up tent that Avery used to keep her of the sun:

Then we visited a former Civil War fort, Ft Fischer.  Aaron and Emerson climbed up a bunker to see an old cannon:

From the top there was a nice view of the area and the intercoastal waterway:

 

And Aaron decided that signs don't mean anything!

Then we headed over to a gazebo where everyone took advantage of the photo op:

Then out of nowhere the skies opened up to a nice refreshing downpour:

The next day we took our car onto a ferry:

And headed over to the town of Southport and walked the old town:

There was a lot of places dedicated to a "James Harper" in Southport which we thought was neat:

Then we stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant that overlooked the harbor:

We went out onto a peir:

And from the peir we were surprised to see down in the sand a huge 6' sting ray washed up on the shore!

The next day we had Lindsay take a nice family picture of us:

We finished by waking up early the next morning to see the sun rise over the ocean, and had breakfast on the beach (well Avery had breakfast with her bottle!)

Dillion's 3rd Birthday

Jim's co-worker Will invited us over for their son Dillion's 3rd birthday party:

After Dillion opened all the presents and went outside to play, Will took out his Dillion's wooden train set and built a huge train layout even though Dillion wsa nowhere to be found.  It's good to be a grown up kid sometimes!  (And not to let Will get made fun of all by himself, Jim added the engineering expertise and worked on superelevation design so the train would stay on the tracks around the curves, which of course brought out eyes rolling from everyone!)

Topsail Beach and Wilmington

We took a beach weekend trip to Topsail Beach with Avery in late June, she has her own pop up tent to stay in to keep out of the sun and heat.  We went with Grandma Woods (Colleen's mom).  The water was a nice warm 84 degrees, the water color was blue green, and it felt wonderful.

Afterwards we went into downtown Wilmington for dinner at Two Guys Grille, we walked the historic riverfront area

And then took a trolley ride through the historic part of town to hear about the history of the city.

The next day we had a quick picnic near Lake Crabtree in the county park:

Then we had dinner that night in downtown Apex at Anna's Pizza:

It was a great way to enjoy Grandma Woods' visit!

4th of July

This year for the 4th of July we went to the Koka Booth Amphitheater in Cary again.  The North Carolina Symphony plays for a few hours then they shoot off fireworks over the pond behind the stage.  We brought our picnic gear and met up with our cousin John & wife Meredith who live near us, plus cousin Beth from St Louis who was visiting John (her brother).

We all dressed red, white, and blue:

Avery was wearing a very star-spangled dress:

Colleen made an American Flag cake:

Here is cousin Beth holding Avery (with cousin John making an ill-timed facial expression!)

It was really crowded at the amphitheater, you can barely make out the symphony on the stage way in the distance!

The weather turned out great and we enjoyed picning outside with our cousins!