Thanksgiving 2016 Trip to Virginia and D.C.

This year, with Marist having the entire week of Thanksgiving off (and CKS only having 1.5 days of school that week), we opted to take advantage and hit the road for the holiday. We headed towards Karen, Brian and Ryan but took a detour to Charlottesville, VA first, as we hadn't been back since we moved when Clare was three months old. And we do love that town!

Tim found us a charming house to rent, affording everyone more space than we'd have had in a hotel. We were able to walk to a restaurant for dinner on our first night, then crash after a long day of driving. The next day we procured pastries from a local bakery and hit the road as tourists. Our first stop: Monticello, which was every bit as gorgeous as I remembered. Fall is probably the most spectacular time to visit, too.

From there we ate lunch and then trekked to UVA. Never too early to introduce the kids to potential schools, right? Not to mention the opportunity to stroll down memory lane. Thomas Jefferson was rightly proud of this campus.

We greatly enjoyed our time as fivesome and happily headed toward D.C. to catch up with the rest of the Seymour clan - with a detour to Georgetown University first. In other words, stop 2 on our "aim high and spare no expense" college tour. Clare and Danny liked it!

Finally we arrived in Silver Spring, where Baby Ryan was the star of the show, and I think he enjoyed Danny, Laura and Clare *almost* as much as they enjoyed him!

The five of us headed back into D.C. on Wednesday to tour some classic Washington sights - mainly centered around the Museum of Natural History and a terrific Imax film on the national park system. It was a gorgeous day, so we walked around the mall, too.

It was a lovely Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, the following day Clare woke up with a case of strep throat, so the outings ended for the two of us - everyone else headed into the city to have lunch with Uncle Dan and Aunt Judy and then visited the National Zoo. But, we enjoyed some cozy movie watching and down time, so it wasn't all bad.

As always, we are thankful for our beautiful family and another blessings-filled holiday season!