It was near the end of strawberry picking season, so the pickings were slim. Eliza preferred to eat the almost rotten ones straight from the plant. Gross!!
We took a ride to the other side of the farm for the blueberries.
Zachary enjoyed picking the blueberries more than the strawberries.
The hill we were on was too steep for Eliza, so she kept falling down and asking to be picked back up. 
There was a playground, slides, and the kids favorite: this water duck race.
Abi convinced Alli and Lexy to play Animalopoly and other games every day. I think they got tired of playing with her, because she wins (cheats) so much. They were good sports about it.
Beau and I were able to participate in the Baltimore 10 Miler, and Alli and Lexy agreed to watch our kids for us. Woo hoo! 10 miles at 30 weeks pregnant. Whew. I needed a nap!
We went to the Washington DC Temple Visitors Center to listen to The Army Field Band Pershing's Own Trumpet Ensemble. They were amazing. I think Beau fell in love.
Of course we had to see Mt. Vernon. It was a hot day (of course), and this actor was sweating bullets. Poor guy.
The front of Mt. Vernon.
Sitting on the ha-ha wall. The kids LOVE the ha-ha wall. Why is it called this? Well, in order to keep the animals away from the house but not to take away from the beauty of the surroundings by having a fence all the way around, a wall was built in such a way that the animals could not climb or jump. However, from the view of the house, you were unable to see where these walls were built, and many a times people would fall off these walls. Everyone would laugh, thus giving them the name....ha-ha wall.
The summer is a great time to be at Mt. Vernon, because there are people all over the place dressed in old fashioned clothing, and going about the farm doing things that would have been done in George Washington's day.
We also toured the Baltimore Zoo. I love the Baltimore Zoo because it is small. It only takes 2 hours to see everything. Abi and Everett got to feed a giraffe. Watch out for that tongue!!
Monkey see.....monkey do.
We took Alli and Lexy to the Inner Harbor of Baltimore to show them that Baltimore does have a nice area.
We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Yum, yum, yum, yum!
Later that evening, I took them to see The Soldier Show, which is a traveling musical group that is comprised entirely of Active Duty Army. Not a bad show. 
My friend Misty came to visit for a few days as well. She hadn't seen my sisters in who can remember how many years. She was gracious enough to take them to Washington DC and show them the sights. I am so grateful for that, because summer in DC is torture. Not to mention walking around amongst the throngs of tourists with 4 kids. They were gone from sunup to sundown, and saw pretty much EVERYTHING!
Abi celebrated her 7th birthday in June, and wanted to spend the day at the beach. So we loaded up and headed to Ocean City for the day. And what a loooong day it was!! After almost 3 hours of driving just to get to the beach, I was tired. All I did was sit there!
Once we got out to the sand, everyone forgot about how tired and cranky they were, and got right to playing. Zachary and Eliza were content trying to drown themselves in the waves. Alli and Lexy were brave and went out into the water quite a ways. Abi had fun collecting seashells, and Everett wanted to dig with his dollar store shovels.
On Sunday, we went yet again to the Temple Visitors Center to see another musical performance. This time it was the Mormon Choir of Washington DC performing a Patriotic Concert. 
The performance was 90 minutes long, and not once did we have to stand up with Eliza, or take anyone to the bathroom. It was THAT good!!
Living in NM, one doesn't get to see very much water. So I took them to see Great Falls. Of course it was hot once again that day. At 10am it was already 95 degrees, and promising to be 105 later that day with the heat index. We didn't stay long. Just enough to get a picture and get back in the van.
Family Home Evening treat of ice cream cones. 
We let the kids stay up late the last night they were visiting, so that we could go outside and catch fireflies. Or, butterflies, and Zachary would say. 
I don't know who had more fun, the kids or the teenagers. :)
All too soon, it was time to say good-bye. It was a sad time at the airport to see them off. Eliza cried the hardest. She became very fond of them during the 2 weeks they were here. I must say, it was rather nice having a few more hands help out with entertaining the kids. I hope they had fun as well!
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