Grandpa and Grandma Visit

Last month, Grandma and Grandpa Herman came out to visit us.  They arrived on Friday afternoon, October 14th and left to go home Monday morning, October 17th.   We had a great time visiting with them and sightseeing in Washington, DC.  On Saturday morning, we headed to DC via metro.

Our first stop was the Pentagon Memorial.

After we visited the Memorial, we stopped for lunch.  Then, our next stop was the U.S. Capitol building.  My mom was very excited that we were able to take a tour inside the building.  Every time she comes to visit, she asks about taking a tour of the Capitol building.  I'm glad it finally worked out for us to go on the tour.

 On Sunday afternoon, we went to Lake Needwood.  My parents wanted to enjoy the Fall colors and I thought this would be a good location.  It was a beautiful Fall day, so I took that opportunity to take a few pictures of them with the munchkins.

We enjoyed our time together, even though it was just for the weekend.  

Buddy just asked me today, "When is grandma and grandpa coming back to visit?"  Hopefully they'll be able to make another trip out soon!

Family Pictures 2011

Last Saturday, Nov. 5th, our family went to Brookside Gardens for a photo shoot with our friend, InShil.

  We had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather and amazing scenery.  The leaves were a little past their peak color, but still absolutely stunning.  Here are a few of the many, many pictures she took of us.  We are thankful for her friendship and talent!

We are so happy with the pictures she captured!  

I was so taken by the beauty of Brookside Gardens that I went back the next day to take a few more pictures of the trees.

Fall is by far my favorite time of year!  It is just so beautiful!

OBX - Sunset Pictures

Before we even left to go on vacation, I was thinking about having pictures of us taken on the beach at sunset.  I thought it would hopefully make for some really beautiful shots.  So, I packed khakis and a white shirt for everyone and a white dress for Sissy.  Jon only had a light pink polo shirt, not a white one, but I was okay with that and thought it would look nice.  

We still had one problem...

We didn't have anyone to take the actual pictures of all of us together.  So, we were hoping someone would be willing to take our picture once we got to the beach.  When we arrived, Jon and I started taking a few pictures of the munchkins and the munchkins with each of us...  

(And here is one of our family pictures, we ended up having a lot to choose from...)

Sure enough, shortly after we arrived, a kind lady walking her dog, offered to take our picture.

The sky was really beautiful that evening!

As soon as she left, another woman, who watched the other lady take pictures of us, came up and offered to take a few more.  She said she understood how much work goes into getting everyone coordinated and ready for a picture and wanted us to have more to choose from.  We were thankful for her kind offer.

Here's one of the pictures she took.

I love how Jon's shirt seems to match the sunset so well!

As we walked further along the beach, a teenage girl, along with her mother, offered to take our picture.  They actually shouted from their beach house, as we were walking, "Can we take your picture!?!?!" We said yes!  It must have been all of us in our coordinating outfits and me, holding the camera as we walked, that tipped them off that we were there to have our picture taken.  Were we that obvious?  :-)

It turns out this family that took our pictures, lives in Cleveland, OH and they own a lake cottage in Angola, IN, about an hour north of where Jon and I grew up.  What a small world!

Here's one of the pictures they took of us all together.

I love everything about this next picture of Buddy and his daddy!  Love, love, love it!!!
Such a sweet capture!

Me and my girl... just love her!

I really like this one, too!  I think it's precious!

We are very thankful for the women who took our pictures!  Turns out we didn't even have to ask, all of them offered to take them and I think they captured some great family photos!

The Wright Brothers National Memorial

On Thursday morning, we headed to the Wright Brothers National Memorial.  This was literally up the road from where we were staying.  Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first two men to fly in an airplane in 1903.
We climbed the hill to see the monument.

Jon and Buddy almost to the top.  It was a steep hill and a very windy morning.

The view of the ocean from the top of the hill.

Our munchkins by the monument.  You can see how windy it was by Sissy's 'fly away' hair!

A view from the top of the hill.  This is the area where the Wright brothers plane flew off the ground.  They chose this area in NC because it was so windy, for the take off, and the ground was sandy, for soft landings.

Here's a replica of their first plane.

Another view of the monument from the replica of their plane.

The munchkins did great walking up and down that big hill.

As we were walking back to the car, the munchkins were holding hands...
thought it was a good photo op!