Halliday Family Blog

Over the past few days (26th through today), Angela’s Brother Jim, his wife Heather, and their 3 kids came to visit us.  They were out in Wisconsin for the funeral of Heather’s Grandmother and decided to extend their vacation and come down and see us.  We had a great time! The boys were really excited to see their two boys and play with them for a few days.  🙂  You can tell how excited they were from the picture below!

Unfortunately, I had to work during the days, but the kids were able to spend a bunch of time together…   They went to the zoo and the DuPage Children’s Museum.  Last night we also went to Baskin Robins for 31 cent scoop night.  We had a great time catching up on things and having some great talks.  It was great to see them again!  🙂

Happy Easter everyone!  Today we had a great Easter Sunday!  Church meetings were wonderful and then after that, we went over to some friends’ house and had a wonderful dinner.  Most of my early morning meetings were cancelled so I didn’t have to get up as early and didn’t have any after meeting appointments!  Yea!  🙂

A couple of months ago, we got a call out of the blue from my Uncle Mike and Aunt Pat.   They were taking a trip out to our area (to see Chicago and then Nauvoo) and wanted to know if they could stay with us for a couple of days!  We were excited for visitors and we were looking forward to this.  I hadn’t seen them for probably 12 years or so!  🙁  They came on Saturday afternoon the 9th, and we spent that evening talking and having them get to know the kids.  Sarah remembered them a little but that was it.  Brittany would have been too young the last time we visited with them.

They came to church with us on Sunday and they felt very at home.  Aunt Pat even got a cookbook from the Relief Society!  🙂  After church and lunch, we left the kids to relax and took Mike and Pat up to the temple to see it.  It was a wonderful day and the weather was absolutely beautiful!

After visiting the temple grounds, we drove them into downtown Chicago and showed them all the major sites down there.  They probably took a couple hundred pictures during our driving tour!  🙂  We then moved south and showed them the museum campuses.  They wanted to go to the Science and Industry Museum on Monday and so we showed them how to get there and how to get back home.  We had a great time chatting with them the whole time and got home just in time for a great dinner and an evening of chatting and re-acquainting!  🙂

Tonight (Monday) for Family Home Evening, Mike and Pat took our family out to dinner at Lou Malnati’s Pizzaria.  We wanted them to enjoy authentic Chicago pizza before going on their way down to Nauvoo.  We had a great time and ordered way too much!  We’ll have a lot of leftovers!  🙂

Happy April Fools Day! 🙂

We are finally home from our family vacation now and can sleep in our own beds!  We got up early, ate breakfast, and drove the 700+ miles (12+ hours) home.  It is good to be back and finally out of the van.  We had such a wonderful time and got to see so many cool things.  I hope the kids enjoyed the history that they were able to learn about.  We went hard the entire time and I think that right now, if the kids had to see another battlefield, they would stage a rebellion, but they seemed to like what we did.  🙂

Time for bed!  🙂

Today was battlefield day and our start for home.  We got up, checked out of the hotel, and drove to Manassas to learn more about the second battle there.  From there we went and saw Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and the Wilderness Battlefield areas.  It is so fascinating to learn about all of these places and to think about what happened there.  We wanted to go down to Spotsylvania, but didn’t have the time.

The most interesting place we went was the visitor center and surrounding area of the Fredericksburg battle site.  We got in on a walking tour of the battlefield and our tour guide was amazing!  He was so animated and knowledgeable that you thought the battle just happened.  We got to go into a house that is still standing today which not many people get to go into.  It was riddled with bullet holes and the crazy thing is that a lady was living in the house throughout the entire battle and never got hurt, even though bullets were whizzing through her house all day.  😐  Kirstyn got to be the guide’s helper.  🙂

After seeing all the battlefields, we drove down through central Virginia and over the Shenandoah Mountains into the Shenandoah Valley.  It was a little foggy so we didn’t get to see much, but I can just imagine how beautiful this place is in the fall!  We drove up 81 through the valley and eventually stopped at Woodstock for the night.  Angela and I had recently read a book called “The Cross Gardener” that took place there.  We wanted to see the places talked about in the book.  Turns out that the author loved the area so much, he ended up moving his family from Utah to the Shenandoah valley and now lives there.

Angela got a sweet deal on a suite at the Hampton Inn in Woodstock!  We had plenty of space and the pool was great!  We swam and then ate and are now totally exhausted and are ready for bed!  Tomorrow we’re heading home and will get to sleep in our own beds finally!  🙂

Today was a GREAT day but also  VERY tiring!  We walked so much we thought we were going to die!  🙂  It was very fun though.  We drove downtown and parked way out in the free parking, a good walk from the Jefferson memorial.  We walked around the tidal basin and saw stuff we didn’t even know was there!  The cherry blossoms were out in full bloom and it was absolutely beautiful!

Although it was a little on the chilly side, it was a beautiful day and the walk was nice.  We came across the Roosevelt memorial which is to the west of the basin, between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials.  We didn’t know it was there (although it probably has been for some time).  It’s usually not where we would go walking.  It is very large and points out highlights of his presidency, including the depression, etc.  We got some interesting pictures…

From there, we walked over to the World War II memorial and had an interesting time talking to the boys about what it stood for.  There was a high school band playing patriotic songs there and so we stopped to listen (and take a break for our tired feed)!  🙂  We then started making our way west, down the mall toward the Lincoln Memorial.  We split and some went to see the Korean War Memorial while the rest kept walking and we met at the Lincoln memorial.  Ben thought that was pretty cool!

The Viet Nam Memorial was next on our list of sites to see, and that is always a highlight.  It is so quiet and peaceful there and an awesome site to see all those names on the wall.  We explained to the boys what the names were and they hushed right up and were very reverent at that site.

We had to pick up the pace and get to the Washington Monument for our 1:30 tour and made it with a little time to spare (we were the first in line to go up).  This is the first time that any of us had gone up into the Washington Monument and it was very fascinating!  The day was pretty clear so you could see almost everything!

I couldn’t post all the pictures we took from up there but it was neat to see where everything was from up in the air.  I don’t think the kids realized how big the National Mall area was until they looked at it from up above!  They couldn’t believe how far we walked and still had to walk to see everything!  🙂

We then watched an Indian performance for the Cherry Blossom Festival before going over and taking a quick look at the Holocaust Museum.  We didn’t have time to see the whole thing, but the kids (especially the boys) were amazed at how sad the whole thing was.  They couldn’t believe that others would treat people like that.  We also saw a few sets of missionaries from the church walking around the mall enjoying the blossoms.  It must have been their P-Day.  🙂

By that time, we were starving, so we asked a security guard nearby where we could sit down and eat some food and he recommended the USDA cafeteria, so we walked over and ate there.  You would think that being the USDA, that the food in the cafeteria (which was gigantic, by the way) would be very healthy and calorie-conscious…  NOPE!  The food was very fattening not at all what we expected (greasy burgers and fries, etc.).  They did have some healthy stuff there, but there was plenty that was not.  🙂

We hurried and ate and then ran (literally) over to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for our tour on how they make money.  That was a highlight for Ben and Zach!  Everyone really loved it, but the boys thought it was the coolest thing on how the US prints all the money!  Just when we were there, we saw a few million dollars being printed ($1, $5, $10, $50, and $100 bills).  Ben wanted to stay longer but we couldn’t because the tour was over.  He wanted some of what was being printed and didn’t want to take no for an answer!  🙂

After the tour, it started sprinkling and it was later in the afternoon, so we started walking back to the car.  Angela took Ben back while the rest of us took a detour and they checked out the Jefferson Memorial.  By that time, all our feet were killing us!  We estimated we had walked about 5-6 miles or more.  Whew!  🙂

On the drive home, we took a wrong turn and it took us forever to get back to the right road to get back to the hotel.  We ate a quick dinner, went swimming, and now we are going to crash and sleep WELL!  What a great time we had in DC!  Tomorrow, we are going to see some battlefields and start making our way back west and home…