Our Family "Staycation" Travel Journal, Day 1

This past weekend Chris planned for us a "Family Staycation," exploring a couple local treasures, the National Harbor and Old Town Alexandria.  He got a fabulous room for the three of us at Aloft Hotel, and knew that showing his frugal wife he got it at a huge discount on it would make the stay even more fun for her!  It was a really special weekend and I've been looking forward to sharing our travel journal of sorts with you.  Be forewarned, we both had our cameras on us, and were accompanied by our favorite subject!

 

Ethan settled into the hotel right away, I think he liked its modern decor!

We started our first morning heading out to breakfast overlooking the Harbor. 

Ethan flashed his two new pearly whites in approval!

 

We then explored the waterfront at nearby Old Town Alexandria.  Chris had taken me there on our third date, so it brought back some of the new relationship memories! 

 

"I love it when you have days off Mommy!"

 

Being the Obamababy he is, Ethan spotted the Obama's in front of a local store...

and our family caught another photo op with the First Family.

We headed back to our hip hotel so our little man could nap...

which Ethan thought was hilarious!  

  

"Haha!  Who naps on Staycation!?"

As these eyes were NOT shutting that afternoon... 

we went to lounge around in the lobby.

Ethan became his very own...

Ethan-in-a-Box!

We ended the day enjoying National Harbor's restaurant week at a very, very delicious Asian Fusion restaurant Grace's Mandarin. 

The view of the sunset over the Harbor was beautiful from our table. (Photo credit: Chris!)

After Ethan enjoyed a quick dinner, he fell fast asleep in his stroller (must have been that lack of nap), and graciously gave his Mommy and Daddy a quiet dinner together!  It felt like we were on a date night with a sitter.

We highly recommend their amazing calamari!

And their Teriyaki salmon, crunchy shrimp rolls, and spicy tuna sushi was even more incredible!

The perfect ending to a fantastic first day.

Daddy's Beard Tickles!

First crawling, now standing (supported)? We didn't give permission for this!

Ethan decided to celebrate his 7 month birthday by standing!

"Does my butt look big from this angle?"

"Sigh... the view from sitting down isn't as exciting anymore."

Ethan's Crawling!

Watch out world, our little man is on the move! We call this his "Ricky Bobby" outfit, and it was fitting for him to wear the racing outfit his Aunt Tina got him for the occasion!

Afterwards, he was very pleased with his performance!

You can see below what he was doing one week before building up to this big feat!  He had finally accomplished getting on his hands and knees, but couldn't quite figure out where to go from there. 

He would spend 20 minutes at a time rocking back and forth, stuck in one spot!

But that's no more, little man is officially on the move!  Let the babyproofing commence!

A special bonus was the fact that his mommy was working from home this past week and was unusually there for another first.  I've lucked out seeing his first roll and first crawl!

This is "Snoverkill"

We had 20-30" in the first round, and today we're expecting 10-20" more?!  Corinne's been telecommuting since last Friday and some schools have already announced they're closing for the rest of the week!

Here's Snowmageddon from space:

C'mon Mother Nature, let the first round melt a little bit first? The plows have no where to put the snow!

We made it through Snowmageddon!

fter about 20 inches of snow, it was time for this family to dig our way out.

The adventure began with bundling Ethan.  You can see how excited he was about wearing this many layers.  "A Christmas Story" anyone?

Ethan and Chris looked at the level of snow from inside our porch door.  

"Daddy, I'm glad both my parents aren't from Florida!  Your Pennsylvania experience is going to come in handy today!"

Ethan wasn't so sure about this whole winter thing as the snowflakes hit his face.

We wondered if it was too cold for our little tot...

...he thought about it...

... and decided "This is fun!"

This is Ethan acting as our little ruler.  He's standing in a section shoveled by his Daddy, that's the top of the snow meeting the back of his head!

There's a car under there!  The Floridian in the family never would have known to put the windshield wipers up before the storm.  

And our toasty home buried next to it.

Corinne (and Ethan strapped on) shoveled once for an obligatory photo op.

And Chris...

... plowed through the rest!

We went back inside to enjoy the rest of the weekend at home together.

It's a White Wednesday!

Pushing the stroller to the metro this morning for the great DC Baby Exchange (when I'm getting to work in DC, and Chris is leaving work in the city, and we pass off the little man over a little family breakfast) was quite an adventure!  Several inches of snow blanketed our neighborhood and no one else was crazy enough to be outside, nevermind to shovel their walk.  Do they sell strollers with mini-snow plows on the front?  This Floridian isn't used to this!

Our home looked beautiful on the outside, but it would have been nicer to have been toasty on its inside!

Here's a view of the park in our backyard after the overnight snow.  And there's more to come, so says the groundhog anyhow.