Washington DC on the 4th

Erin and I were on vacation July 1st through 8th. Our trip started and ended quite dramatically. When we arrived at the KC airport, Airtran informed us that they'd cancelled the flight to DC and we wouldn't be able to make it to DC until 3:00 the next day. This was going to cost us a full day of our trip and we already had tickets for the Holocaust museum that day. Not to mention our non-refundable hotel reservations (I'd used Priceline). They told us we should've been prepared because they'd called an hour ago (we'd left before they'd even called). They also told us there were no openings on other flights. I wanted to check for myself, so I went down to the next ticket counter and found out there were plenty of seats on a direct flight to DC on Midwest, which is a much nicer airline. So, we got to DC earlier and in better style.

We flew home from Salisbury, MD on US Airways. When we got to the airport, we volunteered to be bumped until the next morning, which would've gotten us two free roundtrip tickets. I was all excited, thinking about where we could fly, but there ended up being enough room on the flight. I really don't understand why airlines overbook flights?

Ocean City, MD

Erin's sister's family lives in Ocean City, MD, where our brother-in-law is the head chef of a seafood restaurant, Mackey's, that is right on the bay. The picture with the sun set behind us is sitting on the sand, eating some Maryland crab at Mackey's. It was the best food we had on our trip and the most expensive, so thankfully Mike comped us.

Our niece and nephew are about the two cutest kids you'd ever meet. When we were walking along the boardwalk, we had people stopping us to tell us how beautiful our kids were. I even had one guy say to me "I can tell he's yours, he's a dead ringer." When I explained he's my nephew, the guy told me "you must look exactly like your brother", so I tried to explain again and jokingly told the guy not to insult my poor nephew. We went to the beach in Ocean City and a state park a few miles away. The beach on the state park (which is an island) was beautiful. As you can see, horses roam all across the island. Erin was supposed to be in that picture of the horse, but the horse spooked her, so she's jumping out of the shot. The small island has 3 major ecosystems, beach, wetlands and forest. It's really interesting to see how all three surround each other.

Washington DC

We stood on the steps of the National Archives museum (where the constitution is housed) and listened to John Adams, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson read the declaration of Independence. It was really moving. I got my picture with some of these old dudes in the National Archives museum. We're in the same room as the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Articles of Confederation, and even the Louisiana Purchase, so we can't use flash.

Erin thinks I look like that huge statue from the Canary islands. Man, what a compliment from the woman who's supposed to find you attractive!