Summer trip to Washington DC, Baltimore, and

The Eastern Shore

August 2004

This was a grainy picture taken by Teresa from a cell phone camera on the flight to Washington on Southwest Airlines.

Teresa was walking down the aisle of the plane when she noticed who else but Lance Armstrong. Since Sheryl Crow wasn’t anywhere to be seen, Teresa decides to grab the seat next to him. Only the Violent Belle would be so bold!

But suddenly, in an obvious attempt to pull Teresa away from Lance, the pilot comes up to Teresa and offers to let Grant and Georgia come in the way cool cockpit and sit on the pilot’s lap. So what’s it going to be??? Lance or fun for the kids??

Needless to say, the kids went to the cockpit and Lance’s slow poke secretary got the seat.

We took the water taxi across Baltimore harbor. The captain let Grant steer the boat (while it was docked with the engine off). Lance wasn’t on the boat.

Even though the kids were bursting through the air of Fort McHenry, the flag is still there.

I gave Grant a 5 dollar bill and asked him to find the man.

Grant found a comfy spot to take a nap in a dinosaur femur bone at the Smithsonian.

All the protesting liberals made Grant's spider sense tingle all day.

The PETA protesters gave the kids stickers. It has a baby chicken saying "I am not a nugget!"

So Teresa took matters into her own hands...

After beating up on liberals all day, we took a break by the WW2 monument pool.

We went to Congressman Lamar Smith’s office for a guided Capitol tour. Grant wanted to take a nap on the congressman’s couch. So did I.

This spot is the EXACT center of Washington DC

Each state is allowed to contribute statues of its two most distinguished citizens for display in the capitol.

I was happy to see that the state of Georgia contributed a distinguished anesthesiologist.

Georgia advanced to the 2^nd round in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s paper airplane making contest. But she lost to an older boy.

Grant guides the plane through the wind tunnel.

Georgia got to touch a piece of the moon !!!

Georgia is reading Misty of Chincoteague. So we drove out to Assateague Island National Park and saw the wild ponies. They were everywhere. They would come right up to you but Georgia is allergic to horses so we couldn’t get too close.

Maryland is known for its crabs so we tried smashing a few.

Grant got medieval on the crabs and made crab sauce.

Busch Gardens Amusement Park

We went to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg VA. They were doing a show of The Three Little Pigs and Grant was selected out of the audience to play the big bad wolf. His adoring groupie fans are watching.

Grant huffed and puffed, but couldn’t blow down the brick house. The lady asked Grant, “Do you have any ideas on what we can do now?” Grant replied, “I know…we could go through the front door!” The whole audience just burst into laughter. I was ROTFL. For the rest of the day, Grant wanted us to call him Mr. Wolf.

Plunging to certain death in the log flume. Only one of us had fun. Guess which one.

Junior Ranger training at Assateague National Seashore

This was a great program. They had hands on studies with all sorts of marine life. At the end of the program, they were both awarded official Junior Ranger awards!

Campfire and marshmallow roast at Chincoteague Island. The ranger gave a talk about pirates. Argg. They had a pirate trivia contest with the winner getting a neat pirate treasure map. An older boy won, but the ranger fell in love with our kids and gave us an extra map

Colonial Williamsburg

We rented colonial costumes for the kids and walked around Colonial Williamsburg.

Grant leads the troops into battle. I joined Grant in formation and we marched in the big parade together.

Grant suffered from battle fatigue and went down for a nap in the middle of the parade.

Georgia was selected from the audience to be the defendant in a colonial trial. The judge insisted she should be found guilty but the jurors acquitted her saying, “…she is too cute to hang.” (I’m not kidding. They said that.)