Finding My Zen State. Again.

Once upon a time, I wrote this post for America Adopts Finding My Zen State While Waiting to Adopt . If you know me, or read this blog at all, you know that Zen state comes and goes. I am, or I should say WE are, on a mission to find that Zen state again. And keep it.

The goal is to enjoy every moment we have child free. To really appreciate each other and our freedom to whatever we want at the drop of a hat. Once we adopt, we will never be just the two of us again. Even when the kid is grown and out of our house, we won't be a family of two. There are wonderful things to celebrate about just being us. Here is a short list of the good things about being a party of two:

- If we feel like it, we can eat ice cream for dinner. We have no one watching and learning from our poor choices yet. Once we have a kid, there have to be actual meals, with veggies! Ok, so we do eat that stuff too, but a Saturday movie night? Ice cream is ok!

- We can hop up and go somewhere whenever we want. If we both have the weekend off and want to hop over to Athens or Chattanooga or Asheville, we totally can. We only need to pack a few items of clothes at most. This is not to say you can't take impromptu trips with a baby in tow, it's just way more complicated. Did you pack everything you need? Diapers? Formula? Extra clothes? Pack n Play? Entertainment? Could it possibly fit in the car? What about his or her sleep schedule? Alternately, can Grandma and Papa babysit over night? (Hint hint Grandma and Papa!)

- Oh, we got a text that our favorite band is playing at the Masquerade! Better hurry down there! Yeah, that isn't happening with a baby in the house.

- Using the restroom in privacy/silence. I've heard the stories. I know we will be giving this luxury up. Nothing more needs to be said.

-Sleeping through the night! Sweet sweet sleep. We sure do love it. For now, we sleep soundly. The future is not so well rested.

- Wearing  baby vomit/poo/drool free clothing. I mean, that's nice. I think we can all agree on that.

We would give all of these things up in a heartbeat, but for now, we are making the most of it all. More curling trips, maybe another trip to Philly to see one of my BFFs again, more beaches, more mountains, more concerts, more of each other.

Can we also talk about life lessons? I often joke that I've had too many of these, but it's not true. You can never learn too much in your life. The friends I keep referring to who are adopting before us or matching or just going crazytown with the contacts? These are people we care for. People we want to be happy. We want them to adopt and have their kids be our kid's friends. We have to keep up the soul searching to be happy for others, while supporting our own feelings of grief. A very wise friend of mine told me the other day "Sarah, you have to let them have their adoption stories too". A life lesson.

Goodness, Lisa T! You are always such a inspirational person. I don't know if I say this enough, but thank you for being you.

Things are rough, people. I'm not going to lie. This has been the most challenging thing we have every done. This process is what you make of it. Sometimes it takes hard experiences to remind you to do better, be better, and just do you. We are going to do us and others will do who they are. It will 100% be worth it. We will 100% come out of this one one piece... no, three pieces: mom, dad, and baby.

Goals, Not Resolutions

I have already surprised myself in 2016. I woke up New Year's Day just like I wished I would - hopeful.

Is 2016 our year to become parents? It feels less risky to say it is now that we are in the new year. Maybe it's the distance between now and 2017. We can maybe leave it at it is hopefully our year, but I'm not expecting it to be.

I'm not going to make resolutions, but I am setting some goals this year. I feel like goals are something to work towards and resolutions are things you MUST do. That's too much pressure! In no particular order, here are my 2016 goals:

1. Adopt. Obviously. This goal entails more networking, guest blogging, and getting over my fears and insecurities to get us out there and seen as much as possible. (I will be mailing networking cards soon if anyone wants some! Business card sized, with our information on them).

2. Sit on a beach! Seriously, beach time is a must this year.

3. No sugary stuff for at least a month (on day 4 so far). Note: this is excluding margarita night with my fellow waiting adoptive moms, because adoption is kinda hard you guys. Margarita night with the ladies is a must.

4. More nephew time. Henry is four now and so much fun to hang out with. On Christmas day he told me he is going to tickle our baby's feet! He now calls our yet to be born baby his "baby cousin" and talks about it with excitement. Now it really needs to happen ASAP, because he is more aware and expecting it.

5. Be more organized! I ordered a new planner http://www.passionplanner.com/  that has goal setting/achieving steps, along with the usual planner stuff.  I read tons of reviews and decided this was the way to go for me. Between work, school, and adoption stuff, I always need a physical planner. People always say to just use my phone, but I like the old school way of writing stuff down. I remember everything better that way.

Okay, so those are my five goals for 2016. I think five is enough.

We can do this. We can be tough enough for our kid.

Christmas 2015: Part Two- Funsies

I'm ready for part two of my Christmas post. The last post was about feelings. Boo feelings! If you happen to like feelings though, here is a link : Christmas 2015 Part One .

This is not a feelings post. This is a what we have been up to and what we will soon be doing post.

As per my recent hiatus ending post noted, I saw Frank Turner again. Oh yes, I did indeed. Pictures below. I'm off of work this week, so there has been plenty of laziness and general hanging out.

John has been curling, and watching Everton play soccer, and working hard as usual.

The house is superbly decorated. Presents are wrapped and ready to be torn into (or bags peeped into, because wrapping got tedious, so I turned to the good ole gift bag.

Christmas cards are hung in our entry way. What I really love about our Christmas cards is that so many of them are pictures of families created through open adoption!

It is lifting my soul up to receive these cards from friends we have made during the adoption wait. Watch out, when we have our kid, our Christmas card photos are going to be epic.

Let's not forget the cards featuring friends and their pets! More fur please!

Our annual tin of Christmas cookies arrived from our friend Katie and her family. You may remember her from such blog posts as Vacation Recap: Philadelphia . 

Katie's cookies mean the start of Christmas. She may be thinking "Great, now I can never stop sending them!" No Katie, you cannot. Kidding, sort of. 

I particularly loved the card, which included a drawing by Xander, Katie and Anthony's 4 year old son. I believe he now fancies himself an artist and author of stick figure and worm family books.

We saw Star Wars on opening day. This is the only picture I took, because, well, I was sending it to another friend we met through our adoption agency who was also seeing it that night.

This is the freezing cold line to get in. Yeah, sure it was cold that night, but it won't be for Christmas! It's supposed to be 77 here on Christmas day. It's currently pouring rain here, with a risk of tornadoes tonight. It's not exactly holiday spirit inducing weather.






I know you are all waiting for my Frank Turner trip update!

So, here it is. My friend Jessica went with me to Nashville to see Frank. She had seen him open for (I think) Ben Folds years ago. She was the first person I have met who actually knew who Frank Turner is, so ya know, I kept her. That sounds creepy (she's in the basement..shhhh). Kidding. No, she's actually getting ready to fly to Italy. Whatevs. I'll just hang here in the 'burbs.

Anyway, we went to an instore performance at Grimey's in Nashville and like .. um.. met him and got his autograph and stuff... Yeah, I know, I have met him before. Trust me, it doesn't get old. He liked my shirt (*blush*). I may  have prematurely put my arm around him for our picture. Man, I can be awkward.

What's that? An autographed record? Mine! All mine!

Also, he said I my way of spelling Sarah is the best way and I was all like, yeah, totally, mumble mumble squirm. Because I am super smooth when talking to my music idols.

So, let me not leave out the part where a friend I made in the Frank Turner Army (it's a thing, ok?) Marisa is her name, got us wrist bands to make this possible. It was a know a girl who knows a guy type of deal. I am so thankful to Marisa and her friend!

Then we went to the actual show. It was at 3rd and Lindsley, which was a really awesome venue. We squeezed our way to the front and I sang/screamed/yelled/jumped/danced/sweated my face off.

I no longer have a face. 

I think Jessica is hooked now. It's contagious, that Frank Turner bug.

Ok, I'm stopping with the Frank Turner fan review. Let's talk about my onesie addiction. My name is Sarah and I have a onesie addiction.

If I see a cool, cute, or funny onesie, it will belong to my yet to exist baby. Maybe it's a coping mechanism, maybe I just like to be prepared!

If you hear of a good onesie sale, you know where to find me. Merry Christmas future baby, you are already well dressed.




Well, that's my picture collection for this entry. If you follow us on Instagram: Our Account, you probably have seen most of these already. If you don't - Surprise! Pictures!

It is the Eve of Christmas Eve and I am home alone. John is working, making sure all of you have your ingredients for Christmas dinner. Tomorrow night we will have lasagna and monkey bread and celebrate our Christmas together.

Christmas day we will brunch at my parent's house and marvel at how funny our nephew, Henry, is. How big and smart and wonderful he is. Then we will drive to see John's mom and sister and eat some more, as people do on Christmas. We will chat on the drive up and back about how maybe... just maybe next year there will be three of us. Then hesitate, because maybe not. We don't know.

Tonight though, I am writing for you and for myself. For our future child to know how much we loved him or her before we ever set eyes on our perfect baby.

For now I will watch Love Actually eight times and Bridget Jones' Diary three, maybe four times, because there is no such thing as too much young Collin Firth or too much living abroad in your imagination. I'll wait eagerly for John to get home tonight. To torture him with said chick flicks and spend what is left of this holiday, just the two of us.

The lightning outside seems too close for computer comfort, so I'm signing off. From our hopelessly hopeful family of two to your family, Happy Holidays!

Reinventing What Waiting Is

Hey, is anybody still out there?

Well, it's December 3rd and I haven't blogged in over a month. I've gone back and forth about whether I'm ready to get this going again. There were a lot of positives about taking some time off of adoption. I mean, you never really take time off from the adoption wait, we were still waiting, still hoping, still doing some networking here and there. I guess it was more like taking time off of the extreme emotions that come along with waiting to adopt. A month of pushing it out of my head as much as possible.

Updates? Ok. We had a couple of contacts that appear to have fizzled out. It's hard not to overthink everything you said, wondering if something came across wrong, wondering if you ruined it. I mean, I don't think that is the case, but it's always something I will wonder about. The fact is though, nothing can be done about it. I'm pulling myself up and moving on.

We have about 300 pass along cards if anyone is interested! Email me sarahandjohnadopt@gmail.com . I mailed out about 200 to friends last month (thanks friends!).

Enough adoption news. ENOUGH! Let's get to the fun part.

We have spent the last month having adventures. I've done some of them without John, because the holidays generally mean he works A LOT #producemanagerlife. Yep, I just hashtagged in the blog. What is happening to me!?!?!

Waiting to adopt doesn't have to be sitting around wondering why not us? When will it be our turn? Waiting can be a time to do all the things that will be too hard to do once you have baby demanding your every minute

Without further ado, here are the tales of adventure.

I saw Free Throw (link to their site) at the Masquerade with our friend Stephen! A) Free Throw is awesome. Clangy, buzzy, emo, punk-ish. I just made those descriptors up. Opinions may vary. B) Stephen is also awesome. He is one of our #1 supporters in this adoption process. He was the best man at our wedding and is a friend extraordinaire.

Also, someone puked at this show. Front and center. The crowd parted like the red sea. No thanks.

We ate at Ponce City Market beforehand at Farm to Ladle, which was delish. Fresh, fast, unique. Important to note for Atlantans or people visiting, King of Pops does pops (that's KOP for popsicle) dipped in chocolate at Ponce City Market.

John and I saw Glen Hansard (linky) at the Buckhead Theatre. This was sort of a dream come true for me. My favorite movie is Once, which is how Glen entered my music library. He has come through Atlanta a few times, but never when we could go.

A maybe too jolly opening act, t-shirt purchase, and one gin and tonic later, we had our minds blown by Glen himself. He opened unaccompanied by any instrument, in the dark. Chills. I do love me a musician with a beard and guitar.

Let us not forget what the Buckhead Theatre used to be.. Goodbye Roxy, you will not really be missed. Sticky, old, metal folding chairs... Nope. You even made Henry Rollins screaming about republicans less fun, which is hard to do! The Buckhead Theatre is nicely redone- comfy couches, unique touches all around. Would return.

Just this past Monday (11/30) we saw David Bazan (linky dinky doo) .

We saw him in a random living room in Marietta. GA. Let's just say I only felt the pain of sitting cross legged on a wood floor a few times in the hour plus that he played. It was simply one of the best musical experiences of my life thus far.

He would play a few songs and the open it up to questions from the audience. Obviously, being in someone's living room, the audience wasn't that big, so it was very intimate. John asked two questions. There were cameras filming for a documentary, so we may end up in it!

I guess this happened before my little hiatus and I may have already written about it. I can't even remember! John and I went to our friend's wedding. We got all gussied up and ate like 4 kinds of cake. Superb.

Congratulations to Carla and Scott! May your life always be filled with cake buffets and ice cream sundae bars!

I spent some time having taco and margarita nights with friends. Luckily, just about every friend I have is up for tacos and margaritas. Some of which are waiting to adopt as well. Visit http://www.iheartadoption.org/ to see our profiles. Ours first though ok? We've been waiting the longest. Seems fair (in my head). Of course, so far we have learned that adoption is not exactly fair. To anyone. We do the best we can.

Jalapeno margarita anyone?

Yeah... sorry about the random depressing thought!

In happy news, my dad and I did our annual Turkey Chase (And yearly terrible selfie. It's a tradition now). We hadn't done a race together since last year's Turkey Chase. Usually we do 3 or 4 a year, but we both had a lot going on.

This race is one of my favorites, because it's colder in November and I kind of hate sweating and it's fairly flat and scenic. The lazy person's race.

Our extremely talented friend, Katie, made another hat for our future child. She knows my weak spots- cats and tiny baby things.

Katie is another super supportive friend as far as our adoption wait goes. You may remember her from our trip to Philly over the summer.

We made it through living together in our early twenties, so I think it's safe to say we are friends for life.

I'm sure I left some adventures and fun stuff out. I wasn't planning on writing today, but I finished my grad class for the semester and I'm all caught up at work. I figured why not get it out there.

Our tree is up (yeah, we went fake, despite my declaration of wanting a real one). Our stockings will be hung shortly. We are having a small holiday party with friends we met who are also waiting to adopt in just over a week.


OH MAN. How did I forget... my friend Jessica (also waiting to adopt) and I are driving to Nashville next week to see Frank Turner! I mean, did you really think I could have a come back blog post without mentioning Frank. hahaha! Silly people! I CANNOT WAIT. Capslock level excitement.

So there we have it. Updates. Busying ourselves. Hoping that since hardcore networking has not brought us a baby that possibly ignoring it will? Is there magic in booking nonrefundable trips and buying tickets to shows? If you want to see something bad enough, will the adoption happen to thwart it?  We can only hope.

I want to be a mom. John wants to be a dad. I never thought those urges would become so strong. We are ready! As always, thanks for reading. We are hopelessly hopeful as ever.

Fire In Our Bellies

"Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings,
about fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings,
and the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering,
and help us with remembering that the only thing that's left to do is live" - Frank Turner, I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous


I was driving to work, newly adapting to some adoption news we had just received when this song came on. It's a song I've heard a million times before (possibly literally), but this time these lyrics it hit deep. Why are stalling our lives, stressing over when, where, how and mostly why not?

Waiting to adopt does not involve hitting a pause button of your life. It's about enjoying those little moments between you and your spouse, friends, family, whoever makes your world spin. It's about the silent moments in your home you know will be gone once your baby arrives. It's about running out to meet friends in a moments notice, because well, you still can and definitely should! It's about tacos on patios, funky coffee shops, and 6 mile early morning walks to take in the sights and sounds of the city you love.

It's about readying your home with the perfect rocking chair, buying that hilarious "hangry" onesie and hiding it away in a drawer all washed and ready to be worn by that little soul who will some day make it's way to you.

About going to the consignment sale not knowing who you are buying for and getting whatever you damn well please- boy or girl, gender neutral (in reality, isn't it all gender neutral?), tags on. or used by three other babies.

Take that job offer, even if it means you have to get a new letter for your home study. Take that trip, even though it will take you far away from home while you are on the last minute hospital list. Try something new, revisit something you used to love. Just don't hit pause.

Two years we have waited to adopt. Two years of alternating between calm and anxious. Two years of dreading holidays and birthdays childless again. Two years of feeling rejected when those around us adopt quickly. Two years of wondering why not us?

I want to wonder no more. I want to live my life as if adoption hasn't made me question absolutely everything about my life thus far. I want to go full steam ahead shouting that I am who I am! What you see is what you get! I am breathing in the air around me and feeling the life that it gives.

Record collections. Curling bonpiels. Braves games. Concerts. Laughing with your best friend until you can't see straight. 

This year, I want a giant REAL Christmas tree. Baby or no baby. I want to give presents to everyone I know and wrap them up in gaudy bows. I want to bake 300 Christmas cookies with my sister in law like we did the last couple of years, sneaking sips of Kahlua meant for the recipes, leading to many successes and failures in the kitchen! I want to hear my nephew's Christmas list and his amazing kid views of naughty versus nice. I don't want to wallow in what we don't have, but rather embrace what we are so fortunate to have. 

The one person who will one day find us fabulous enough to raise her child will click with us over something you can't predict- a lifestyle choice, a song, a sports team you have in common, the fact you spew your emotions all over the internet in the form of a blog? Yes? No?

It will happen. It will. It has to, because we've come way too far for it not to.

In the meantime, the only thing that's left to do is live.

What We Need: A Guide

On Wednesday, September 23rd we will have been waiting two years "live" with our adoption agency The Independent Adoption Center.

Since apparently it is hard for most people to understand and relate, let me tell you what we need as far as support.

If you no longer know how to support us, just ask. 

What do we need? We need you to help us network. If it can come up organically in a conversation, tell your friends, coworkers, doctors, and plumbers about us. Tell your mail person, your hairdresser, your yoga teacher, that neighbor you only see on trash days.

If you don't know what to say to us anymore, here are some lines you can use.

"We are so excited for you to become parents through adoption."
"We love and support you."
"I don't understand what you are doing. Can you please explain?"
"Wow, waiting can really suck sometimes."
"Do you need a hug?" (yes, please)

The stuff you should probably avoid

"Wow, you have waited so long!"
"Why do you think you guys have been waiting so long?"
"What is wrong that you haven't adopted yet?"

Things you should be aware of:

Your face going blank and eyes glazing over when I say the word "adoption".
Yawning and squirming when I say anything about adoption.
Abruptly ending conversations when I say anything about adoption.

If you don't want to hear about it anymore, you should probably not hang out with me. This is my life. This is my brain on adoption.

I realize that only people who are going through it or have been through it can truly relate. I really do.

It will always be new, shiny, and exciting to us. Each day is different. Contacts, no contacts, close calls, dead silence. We learn new perspectives from birthparents who already placed babies, people who have already adopted 1,2,3 times, other waiting families and even friends and strangers who are adoptees. It's an ever evolving process. You can never learn enough from the people directly involved in the adoption triad (birthparents, adoptees, adoptive parents).

I want you to want to shop for baby stuff with me. I want you to buy the things you see and dream about buying for our baby. It wont jinx anything. I want you to bring the adoption up in casual conversation and dream about names, vacations, and holidays with me. Dream about our child's first day of kindergarten, first dance, high school graduation, our child's future children and so on.

We are okay. We are stronger than this struggle. This is an exciting time. Please celebrate with us.

At two years waiting, this is what we need: Your enthusiasm.

Vacation Recap: Philadelphia!

 I am finally writing up our Philadelphia trip! I know, a couple of months late, but at least I'm doing it. After our trip to DC, we drove to Philadelphia to see our friends Katie, Anthony, and Xander. Katie was my college roommate and we have stayed close through the years. She moved to PA a couple of years ago, so we decided it was finally time to go up there and see her new Georgia-less life.

We got there in the afternoon and were greeted by the welcoming committee:

The Hounds

The first night we stayed in, tired from our extreme day of walking in DC the day before. Katie has always been a great cook, cooking for me in college and even after. She made us a nice vegetarian dish, keeping John in mind, of curried red lentils (never going back to boring old green lentils!) and poached eggs. I was nervous about this combination, but I have to say, it was delicious. Katie can make nearly anything delicious.

The next day we went into Philadelphia. Our friends live in Ridley Park, which is just a few minutes ride outside of Philly. Xander is four, so we needed to do some kid friendly things and let's face it, adults like doing the kid things too usually! We went down to the Delaware River front and tried out some hammocks....

These may have been the highlight of the day. I know that sounds weird, but the weather was perfect and our feet were a little tired from DC. The wind made the hammocks sway just the right amount. I could have slept there all afternoon!

I actually bought a hammock for John for "almost a father's day" on Father's Day this year. We haven't set it up yet, but now that Georgia is cooling off a little at night, we might have to do that.

While we were lazing around on the hammocks, Katie and Xander wondered around and....

Found some giant connect four!

Anthony had gone back to his car to get his glasses, because we were about to go explore a submarine. Prescription sunglasses will not quite cut it in the belly of a submarine.

Xander seemed to have a great time with the giant games, but was a little nervous about the steep staircases and dark parts of the submarine. He is a brave kid and toughed it out though.

This is on top of the USS Becuna, the submarine we explored. I could be wrong, but I think the ship you see in front is a restaurant.

We ate at Reading Terminal Station later in the day, but that's a story for later.

I can't even say how perfect the weather was enough times in this. Totally beautiful and breezy. Just across the Delaware River, you could see Camden, New Jersey. I considered shuttling across to add another state to my list of states visited, but we had a lot of Philadelphia to get to!

 This is a porthole window looking out of the USS Olympia, a Naval ship. Through that window is.... Camden, NJ. Be excited, I know you are!

Actually, that might have been a hole for the one of the giant guns or cannons or whatever they had on the ship. Can you tell I was paying more attention to the other stuff? Weapons are not my thing. I really liked looking at the pharmacy and surgery rooms, as well as the captains quarters and where the lower ranking officers slept. 

John, Xander and I stopped for some photos on the deck of the USS Olympia. We have a ton, but a blog post can only be so long.

Xander was such a good sport the whole time. For being barely four he was very patient and good-natured during it all.

As a side note, Xander does something called the Xander show. It's a bit of a variety show, with singing, dancing, jumping, and general kid wackiness. I admit, I miss the Xander show.

After the ship, we made our way to Elfreth's Alley which is the oldest continually inhabited street in the US.

It was a little awkward, because as the description says- people live there! We tried to be quiet tourists, but there was an older lady going around looking in people's windows. I was embarrassed for her and didn't want anyone to think she was with us. We kept our distance.

It's a short street, definitely worth a look, but also over quickly. There is a museum, but it didn't appear to be open.

We decided to walk to Reading Terminal Market for lunch. Google maps had us thinking it would be a quick walk, but it was a serious long haul. Hey, at least we earned our....

 CHOCOLATE KIDNEYS! What? Yes, one of the chocolate shops in Reading Terminal Market has chocolate internal organs. Am I in heaven? I do love anything internal organs (transplant recipient here, ya know?!). Katie bought me a new set of kidneys. I can't ever say she never gave me a kidney now.

These are dark chocolate kidneys. I ate most of one on the way back to Georgia.

We also ate tacos, whoopie pies, and homemade marshmallows dipped in chocolate. Vacations are for eating right? After that we headed back to Ridley Park to relax.

Friday, our last full day in Philadelphia, we went to the Philadelphia Zoo. Katie and Anthony have season passes, so we got to slip in as guests. The hippo was my favorite part. The wolves smell horrendous.

I felt terrible for some of the animals though. Zoo Atlanta does a much better job with their animal habitats. The polar bear made me really sad. He just didn't look happy or comfortable.

There were tons of goats, which if you know me, you know I love a good goat visit. Unfortunately, the cool part of the goat enclosure was for kids. Why must they leave those of us out who are waiting to have kids? Special section "future adoptive parent goat exhibit". Yes, please.

After the zoo, went back into the city to walk around and get some dinner.

John and I really wanted to do the cheesy tourist thing and get our picture with the love sign. FYI, it looks all calm there, but there are really a ton a of people trying to get you to pay them to take your picture. Also, a bunch of kids skateboarding and some very talented kids dancing.

I'll admit that I was a little over the walking and sweating at this point. I was hungry and I get a little "Hulk smash" when I'm hungry. You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry! (Teehee... get it?)

A lady told me I had Reba McEntire hair. Not sure that's a good thing!


We ended up at a little hole in the wall pizza place, with a basement bathroom from the depths of my nightmares. The pizza was fantastic though! It looked so unimpressive, but no, it was delish! We then

On the way back to the car to head back to Ridley Park, we came across this piece of art. It is actually an actual plane that was taken apart and put together as if it had crashed. The part John is standing in front of is a sort of greenhouse. The sign said they grow food in there for those in need. I didn't see any food growing, but there were plenty of plants.

If you look behind the plane, you can see they have another statue of a giant paintbrush (it also had a hilariously shaped dab of paint under it).

After stopping off at to see some local architecture, we headed back to Katie and Anthony's house to rest up for our 11 hour ( that turned into like 14 hours) trip home. Next time we will definitely fly! I think we needed another 3 or 5 days to see the rest of Philadelphia. We will be back someday soon. 

You can read about the Washington D.C. part of our trip here: DC TRIP!

John has a bonspiel in Charlotte coming up in early October. I have plenty of homework from my grad class and some other distractions in the works. Hopefully our next vacation will include us as a family of three. Here's hoping, right? 

Vacation Recap 2015: Washington D.C.

Back in July, we decided to take "real" vacation. I say real, because since we have been waiting to adopt, we always try to do things on the cheap and conserve leave time from work. We do this because there is always a possibility that we will end up adopting our baby from another state. If that happens, we would have to stay in that state for approximately two weeks while some legal stuff takes place, allowing us to cross state lines with the baby. But you can't live your life based on what ifs!

We are lucky that our friends live in Philadelphia and invited us to stay with them for a few nights. We decided to drive and stop in Washington D.C. for two nights beforehand, since neither of us had done the whole tourist thing there since we were kids. This post will focus on the DC part of our trip.

Edit: Philadelphia recap up here: Philly!

Washington D.C. 

First we went to the Capitol and did a free tour. Tourist tip: they give out free tickets at 9am. Enter through the visitor center.

Our tour guide was probably an intern with high aspirations, because she was less than thrilled about her job! Everyone in our group was laughing about her lackluster tour guide skills.

As you can see, they are doing some restoration on the building, inside and out. It was still amazing to see all of the detail that was still exposed. 

More restoration.

From what I understand, the painting on the inside of the dome was painted directly onto the plaster, which can chip off, so they have to more or less constantly restore the ceiling.

I would have asked but, our tour guide extraordinaire was a bit snarly at this point in the tour. Wouldn't want to make her have to work!

That is lady liberty up there looking over everyone (including many statues of important people in America's history).

This room was built in a way that it was very difficult to keep secrets (secrets in politics? never!). You could stand on one end of the room and hear someone on the other end whisper! Our very unenthusiastic tour guide begrudgingly demonstrated it. Again, laughter from our tour group erupted over our guide.

Next up, we went to the Botanic Garden.
 We had been walking outside for a while, so we were happy to find some air conditioning. We have the Atlanta Botanical Gardens by us, which is impressive to say the least, but this was a really cool experience.

You can't tell, but we were up fairly high in this picture in a large atrium. 

Shelob! Had to take a picture of the Tolkien inspired plant name. Nerdin' it up on vacay. 

Next up was the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. This was #1 on my list, since I remember really loving it as a kid.

We spent a couple of hours there and watched a planetarium movie called Our Dark Universe. They have a newly redone planetarium and it was amazing. Totally worth it- both for the movie and to sit down for a little while!







And of course we bought astronaut ice cream. It was...uh... chalky and then slimy. No thanks!

Next up, we headed over the Natural History Museum. We were really looking forward to this, but it was really, really crowded. We had already walked about 7 miles at this point, so we might have rushed this one a bit.

We found the cafeteria and had some ice cream and then decided to head to the American History Museum, which was next door. It was less crowded and I think overall we enjoyed the exhibits more.

But we couldn't leave without some sort of goofy picture.

Some teenager asked me if I was scared right about when this photo was taken. That was super weird...

Nope, not scared of a stuffed bear.

We walked and walked and walked. Came upon the Washington Monument. The line to go inside was really long and we still wanted to do a few more things before we ran out of time. Cue monumental selfie! Get it? I know, I'm mostly only funny to myself.

I misjudged the aim of the picture, so enjoy my face along with a small portion of the monument!

This is the World War II Memorial. It was beautiful. There was a great breeze and we had a much needed rest on a nearby bench.

My grandfather, or Pawpaw as we called him (you can blame that on my oldest cousin) fought in WW2. I made sure to visit the Georgia pillar to honor him. Pawpaw passed away in 2004 and is very missed to this day.

Both of John's grandfathers fought in WW2. Unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of meeting either one of them, but have heard many stories from John. It was great to be able to stop and honor them.

This is the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. I heard a number of people talking about that scene from Forrest Gump, where he is reunited with Jenny. All I could think about was that I was standing where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I have a dream" speech.

Is it just me, or do Americans often miss the point of their experiences? I try to make an effort not to dismiss the true purpose of places and events, even though pop culture is so pervasive in our society.

Oops, I cut ole' Abe's forehead off. Well, This was the only one with John in it, that didn't have some girl doing stretches behind him.

I never claimed to be a good photographer.

- Not pictured: the kid in the Nirvana shirt who really did not want to be there. If you want to laugh, I'll show you the pictures of him in the background expressing his dislike of the experience.

We were around mile 10 of walking here. Still had the Whitehouse on the to-do list. I think we both has a bit of a uptick in energy heading to our last destination. That lasted like 10 minutes. so.much.walking.

From atop the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

It was a beautiful day. Just enough breeze to get us through the heat. I love how the Washington Monument looks like a stick with a cotton candy cloud at the top. Yum.

Our last stop of the day was the Whitehouse. It looks like we are pretty close here, but they actually have a wide barrier and police officers keeping you away from the main fence.

Too many fence jumpers lately! People are nuts.

 The illusion of calm

The reality!








We really loved D.C. We loved the ease of walking around the city, the access to public transportation (we even rode the Metro at rush hour!), we loved the history on every corner. I loved Union Station, because they had cold brew coffee and cupcakes... it's so easy to earn my love. Coffee, chocolate, I'm yours.

We hope to go back when we aren't so rushed. Two nights is not enough to see everything. We talked about how nice it would be to take our kid one day, but once they are older and can appreciate the history and politics more.

Stay tuned for a picture post about Philly!