24 Hour Visit with Nana

My mom was in Washington DC for an educator's conference, so John and I decided at the last minute to head down there to see her. We left Monday afternoon and arrived around 6:30 PM. We made really good time, managed to miss most traffic, and the girls did great! We were all excited to see Nana!

Her conference was held at the new Gaylord National Resort and Conference Center and it was incredible! What a place!


Here is my amateur shot of the hotel, but you should check out their website to see just how amazing it really is ... I felt like I was in a fancy hotel in Las Vegas! The Gaylord National is only part of a huge development right on the Potomac on the Maryland side called National Harbor. There are hotels, restaurants, shops and other attractions, including Cirque du Soleil. It's not completed yet, but once it is, it will be an incredible village with just about everything you could possibly want!

The rooms have double doors that open up to the big atrium. I took the above picture from our 11th floor room.

Here's Reagan and John in the room ... I'm not sure if all the hanging lights are there year-round, or if they are only there now as Christmas decorations. Either way, they are pretty spectacular!

John and Avery - on our way to dinner

This enormous tree was made of glass and it was suspended in the air!

Just as we were finishing dinner at 9:00 PM, the fountain by the tree went off. It was synchronized to music and the lights made the water change colors (a smaller version of the Bellagio in Vegas!). Reagan was mesmerized ... to be honest, we were all pretty impressed!

She kept holding her arm out, feeling the mist from the fountain ... it was splashing everywhere, soaking the stone in front of it.

Reagan's new thing is taking pictures ... I'm constantly finding my camera in her hands, with very interesting shots on the memory card! After snapping multiple shots of her, she insisted on taking one of me in front of the fountain. I had it set on the "night snapshot" setting, so you can see she didn't hold it very still when she took it!

What a precious look on her face :)

Here's a video clip of the end of the water show

Avery discovered puddles after the water show! She was soaked by the end, but she was so happy!

Tuesday morning: Avery went to bed very late (11:00 PM!), due to the close quarters, then she woke up at 7 AM. By 11:00, she was ready for a nap, so I put her down, then took Reagan back downstairs to the fountain.

Walking along the wall of poinsettias

Nana and Reagan

Reagan and Mama

Reagan and Papa - Gorgeous, festive decorations in the lobby

This was a large sculpture of King Triton coming out of the sand - a pretty impressive work of art. The enormous tree was also pretty spectacular.

Here we are on the pier, waiting to board the water taxi

Avery and Papa on the water taxi

Reagan and Nana on the water taxi

The water taxi went up and across the Potomac ... we went under the Woodrow Wilson Bridge

The water taxi dropped us off in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, which is so full of history and character.

Here we are, walking down King Street, in search of a restaurant to have a nice late lunch/early dinner.

We decided on this restaurant called "Two Nineteen"

Reagan and Nana ... Both Reagan and Avery behaved very well, as we sat there having a lovely meal and catching up with my mom.

Avery was giving Reagan "loves" ... she's such an affectionate little thing, so I just love watching her give her big sister hugs!

It's pretty obvious that she adores her big sister!

Walking down King Street after lunch

Reagan and Mama

When we got back to the pier, we had about 30 minutes to kill before the water taxi took us back to the hotel ... there were so many seagulls, that I decided to take out some cheerios from the diaper bag.

Reagan loved every minute of this! The seagulls went nuts over the cheerios and we couldn't believe how close they would come to us to retrieve them!

We were lucky to have very mild weather, about 45 degrees

Reagan and Papa at the marina

I just love this picture of Reagan and her Papa having fun!

I took this picture of the hotel as we got off the water taxi ... it was just after 5:00 on Tuesday evening

We went back to the hotel room, packed up all our stuff, put the girls in their pajamas and packed up the car for the ride home.

By the time we got in the car, it was 6:30, so we spent exactly 24 hours there! It was sad to say goodbye to my mom, but I'm so happy we had the opportunity to spend some time with her. The hardest part about living so far from my parents is that I don't get to share my girls with them on a daily basis. I love my daughters so much and my favorite thing to do is show them off. My parents take their roles as grandparents very seriously ~ they truly adore their grandkids which makes me very happy. By the way Dad, Reagan was a little confused and concerned that you weren't there too! She definitely missed you!

Mystic Connecticut Continued

Rather than editing the original post, I figured I'd create a new one. I took about 450 pictures on our short trip to Mystic (Monday - Thursday), so it's taken me a while to sort through them all. As you can probably imagine, it was difficult to narrow it down to only a handful of "blog-worthy" photos, so I decided on 46 of my favorites. Yes, 46! For those of you who are familiar with Blogger, it took me HOURS to upload all of them and format them ... so you better enjoy them!
We left on Monday afternoon (October 13th), just in time for naps ... Reagan fell asleep within the first 3 minutes of being in the car (no lie!) ~ we had barely left the edge of River Vale and entered into Old Tappan. Reagan is addicted to her stuffed animals, so it's no surprise she fell asleep with one in each arm. The drive was absolutely beautiful. I couldn't help myself from snapping pictures of the view from inside the car.We especially liked these trees that were bright red on top, yet still green on the bottom ... I cropped the above picture to give you a better look at the tree:

We checked into the Residence Inn in Mystic which was perfect. We had a 2 bedroom suite, and they serve a complimentary breakfast and dinner. My dad and I took Reagan swimming the first night, after I put Avery to bed.

On Tuesday morning (10-14-08), we went to the Mystic Aquarium. The biggest attraction were the white Beluga whales - they were beautiful.

Reagan loved watching the sea lions and listening to them bark.

Nana and Reagan, watching the penguins

My dad let Reagan use his binoculars and she was very much attached to these the entire trip. Half the time, she looked into them from the wrong end, but she loved them nonetheless.

Beluga Whale Feeding Time

Avery and Amanda during Sea Lion Show (this was the first time I had put her "bangs" up into a pony tail ... not sure yet if I like the look or not)

Reagan, Amanda and Avery, watching the Sea Lion Show

You can't go to Mystic and not visit Mystic Pizza, right? This restaurant was a shrine to the movie ... there were flat screen TVs everywhere, playing the movie.

My parents, Rod and Michelle

Mystic Pizza - can you see Julia Roberts on the screen above?

At one point, we were trying to get Avery to fall asleep in the car, so we drove around and happened to see this old car on the side of the road ... my mom insisted that we stop so we could get a picture of it.

On Wednesday (10/15/08) we spent the morning at the Seaport. The above picture is probably my favorite picture of them all ... isn't it beautiful??

Amanda and Reagan at the Seaport

Reagan at the entrance to the Seaport

My dad and Avery

I love this picture too.

Reagan loved exploring the inside of this ship

Reagan and Nana

I usually don't ever take "Scenic" photographs. Growing up, my dad refused to take pictures of things unless there was a person in the picture, so I guess I picked up this habit. But I couldn't help myself from taking scenic pictures in Mystic ... it was so picturesque and beautiful.

Reagan had fun throwing little white shells into the water

Grandpa and Avery

After we ate lunch, Reagan walked over to Avery and wrapped her arms around her (completely spontaneously!). Avery started to laugh and I got these adorable pictures of my sweet girls together.

As usual, Avery was trying to eat Reagan's face.

After the Seaport, we went back to the hotel and the girls took a nice long nap. Once they were asleep, my mom and I left in search of a salon for a pedicure. We found one, but couldn't get in immediately, so we took a detour to the ice cream shop that was located on the drawbridge.

We took these pictures, got our ice cream, then watched the drawbridge go up so a large sail boat could pass through.

After naps, we rushed back to the Aquarium and let Reagan pet the stingrays again. She LOVED this, as did I.

Her other favorite part was holding the small hermit crabs

Here's video of Reagan and the crabs ... she loved picking them up, then letting them crawl around on her hand. I love that she had no fear!

Here's my mom feeding Avery ... my parents couldn't believe how much Avery could eat at dinner each night. She definitely consumes more than double what Reagan eats each day! It's crazy!

Before putting Avery to bed that night, I tried to take some video of her new skill of standing and taking a step or two ... Reagan decided she needed to tackle her with hugs instead! This video is sure to make you smile :) When John saw it, he couldn't stop laughing.

After another night in the pool, Reagan let Nana comb her hair after her bath

There was such a beautiful tree in the parking lot of our hotel. As we were leaving the hotel on Thursday morning, I decided I just HAD to have some pictures of it.

Before driving home on Thursday, we decided to go back to the Aquarium one last time (this was our 3rd day there). This Beluga whale was hanging out in this very shallow section of the tank, right in front of this window where kids could crawl up to get a close look. It was spectacular to see this whale so close up, practically standing still. It really seemed as if the whale enjoyed the social interaction with the children in this spot.

As you can see in this video, the whale was hardly moving at all. Each time we saw the whales the previous two days, they were constantly moving, swimming all over the tank, so this seemed uncharacteristic. Of course, I'm not a marine biologist, so what do I know?

One of Reagan's favorite parts of the Aquarium was the tank where she got to touch the sting rays. We spent almost an hour here on the last day, since we practically had the place to ourselves!

We watched the penguins again

Then we went back inside so Reagan could see the crabs again. Avery enjoyed watching the fish swim around in the tanks.

It was such a wonderful trip. For those of you who have never been, I highly recommend Mystic as a destination, especially in the fall. I'm sure I'll make this trip again, especially because it was a rather short drive (just over 2 hours). Thanks Mom and Dad for such a fun time!!