Wilkerson Weekly: A Week With Nathan, Sarah, and Skyler

Okay. Before I really start explaining our week, I need to get a few things out in the open:

1. Luke was sick the ENTIRE week which meant that he and Jared missed out on most things

2. Since Luke (and thus the diaper bag) didn't accompany me on most excursions, I forgot my camera which is usually in the diaper bag, so I didn't get cool pictures of most of the things we did. Check out Sarah's blog for those. She brought her camera.

3. Luke isn't really all that photogenic anyway, but when he's sick, he really looks funny in most of the pictures. Sorry, Luke...but it's true.

4. There were a lot of great photo opportunities at home, but almost every time I pulled out the camera, Luke stopped doing whatever was so cute and went for the camera. So I got a huge load of pictures that look like this:

The blurry spot on the right is Luke reaching for the camera.

Now, about our week.

Friday, Nathan and Sarah were supposed to get in around 6:00 pm. Sarah missed a flight and had to get onto a later flight, though, so they didn't end up getting to our apartment until around midnight. Nathan had gotten to the airport on time, so Jared went to Richmond early and hung around with Nathan until they could Sarah and Skyler. It was a pretty tiring day for them. (I went to sleep early :)

On Saturday we woke up and took our time getting ready, and then we were off to D.C. Luke was really good in the car on the way there AS LONG AS RAFFI WAS PLAYING. Seriously, we turned it off a couple of times. He started crying immediately. Turned it back on. He stopped crying immediately! We got a really good deal on a hotel there that I found on Hotwire. We bundled up the kids and walked over to the art museum of the Smithsonian, but we got there right when it was closing. And then Luke started freaking out. Poor kid. He just wasn't up to being lugged around, so Jared took him back to the hotel while I went with Nathan and Family to get some dinner.

That night was horrible! Luke's cough got a lot worse, and you could just tell that it hurt him to cough. He couldn't sleep because his cough would wake him up, and then he couldn't fall back asleep because every time he coughed, he would jar awake and cry again. When he was held so that his head was at a higher angle, he did better, so Jared and I spent a lot of time that night holding him in the lounge chair. We were all really tired the next day, so Jared took Luke home on Sunday morning so he could rest. And I stayed in D.C. with Nathan and Fam.

We went to quite a few museums: American History where we saw the original C3PO and the Star Spangled Banner. It was surprising how large the flag was. I think that was one of my favorite things to see. We also went to the Natural History Museum, and Air and Space museum, and some monuments. I also got my first taste of geocaching on the streets of D.C.

Monday morning, we took our time getting ready again. We let the boys get some play time.

Skyler LOVED Luke's jumperoo. He would go nuts in there bouncing all over the place. It would keep him occupied and happy for up to an hour at a time! Luke liked bugging Skyler while he was in the jumperoo.

Note: Luke had diarrhea a lot of the week (that is STILL going on) so he didn't wear pants too much. It was just a hassle to take them on and off when we were changing his diaper so frequently.

Later that day, we went to Colonial Williamsburg to walk around. Since Luke was kind of fussy, Nathan and Sarah didn't buy tickets because we weren't sure how worth it buying them would be. For tourists, the tickets really aren't cheap. They liked looking around, though, and that night Nathan and Sarah went to see the Cry Witch program that Jared and I liked so much. I think they liked it, but the program got overshadowed by Skyler's very rough Monday night. Oh the joys of kids!!!

Tuesday, we just hung around home most of the day and then did some SERIOUS shopping for Thanksgiving dinner.

On Wednesday, we went to the Glassblower's workshop in the morning. We saw them making a Christmas tree ornament that looks like a pear. It was really need to watch. Later that day, I went to Historic Jamestowne with Nathan, Sarah, and Skyler while Luke stayed home to nap and rest. Nathan treated me to a yearlong pass to Historic Jamestowne. It was $10 for each adult or $40 dollars for the year pass which included 3 guest passes each time you go. So Nathan just bought the year round pass and gave it to me and then he and Sarah were my guests.

Thanksgiving day was really fun, but I forgot to take pictures. I really wish I had gotten some good ones of our pies because I was very proud of them. We made pumpkin pie, turtle pecan pie, and an apple pie cheesecake that was AMAZING.

Our upstairs neighbors, Ron and Connie, joined us as well as Sam from our ward. So it was a full house, and we had great food and great conversation. Ron just published his first book called Washunga about his great grandfather (maybe great great?) who was an Indian chief.

Luke didn't have birthday cake on his birthday since there was so much pie. But he did get some presents. I'm going to post another blog entry on his birthday (especially when we do his cake), but here are a few pictures with his presents: