Busy month!

Alright, I bet you thought I had forgotten this place! Nope. Just been really busy. We have had a whirlwind month. Last weekend we headed out for a family vacation to Washington, D.C. (Mike's first time there). We actually passed Pres. Obama's motorcade on Tuesday, as he was heading to an Arlington, VA, school to deliver an address. We were coming into town on 12th street, and he was going out. Since it was Labor Day weekend, some things were trickier to see than others, but we hit the highlights: Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, WWII memorial, Korean War memorial, Vietnam memorial, Jefferson Monument (from afar), FDR monument, Library of Congress, National Archives, Capitol building, Museum of Natural History, Watergate Hotel, Kennedy Center, White House, Supreme Court Building, National Cathedral. On our way into town, we stopped off to see the LDS temple. Here is a picture of us in front of it.
Leigh Ann had to get a picture with Jake at the Tennessee column of the WWII memorial!
The person who took this picture was supposed to get a picture of us with the Jefferson memorial in the background. You can clearly see it, directly behind me!!!!!
Owen enjoyed the opportunity to get out of the car and crawl around on the LDS temple grounds.
Here we are in the gardens behind the Smithsonian castle. We would have taken a picture with the castle behind us, except it would have just looked like us in front of a red brick building.

This one actually turned out pretty good. We are on the top steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out over the reflecting pool to the Washington monument in the distance. As you can see, Jake was a good sport, and loved having his picture taken!
So now I will go back in time. This picture is of Owen from August - he is starting to get more teeth in than is shown in this picture, but this gives a good shot of him flashing those pearly whites! He was about 10 months old here (now we are closer to 11 months!).
Jacob scored some great PJs at Kohl's - they had Buzz Lightyear and Woody PJs (from the Toy Story movies - his favorites) on sale 2-for-1 - here he is dressed up as Buzz Lightyear. As he told me the other night, "I wuv Buzz Whitehere PJs and Woody PJs!"
Again, a little older picture, but this is Owen in July, about 9 months old, with his top front teeth just breaking through. Now the boy is a bottomless pit. He will down an 8-oz. bottle of formula, and then scarf down whatever else you put in front of him! He is never full!!!!! I don't know what we will do when these guys hit teenage years!
Again, from July. We took a trip down to Chattanooga to celebrate the 4th of July and Leigh Ann's dad's birthday. While there, we made a trip to a train museum that has a running train that you can ride - Jacob absolutely loved it. He named the train Thomas, and we were riding in either Annie or Clarabell (for those of you familiar with Thomas the Tank Engine - Jacob has the names of all the trains already memorized!).
There has been other news, as well. The weekend before our D.C. trip, Leigh Ann's family came to town, and we all went up to Cedar Point, an amusement park up on the shore of Lake Eerie. I conquered my fear and actually went on my first real rollercoasters. Of course, it is probably a good thing I didn't do any research ahead of time - the second rollercoaster I tried, the Millenium Force, had a >300 ft. drop, and at one time not too long ago was the highest continuous circuit rollercoaster in the world. The drop from that height is at an 80 degree angle, and you get up to 93 miles/hour. Yeah, it scared the crap out of me - but Leigh Ann and I rode it again! I ended up having a blast. If anybody gets the chance, I highly recommend Cedar Point. I tried as many of the rollercoasters and other rides as possible. One of our favorites was the Wicked Twister. I was too chicken, though, to try the Top Thrills Dragster - it uses a linear accelerator to take you from 0 to 120 mph in about 4 seconds, shoot you straight up about 400 feet, then drop you back down. No thank you.

Jacob has started pre-school. We were lucky to find a sister in the ward who runs a pre-school from her home, and they meet twice a week for 2 1/2 hours. We hope Jake will learn a lot - especially how to listen and behave!

That is it for now. I'm sure there is more, but this will have to suffice for now!