Missing our Houseguests...

I left off with Thursday in my last post. So Friday was our last day with Mom and Dad. So we decided to take Aida up to Sherando Park. We walked around the lake and the park for a little while, but the bugs were definitely out to get us so we headed back to the house. Mom and Dad had planned on working on some projects with us while they were here, but with Ben getting sick our projects were put on hold. But Mom and Dad did get a bunch of little things done like trimming our bushes and staking a tree so it stood up correctly. Ben and Dad fixed our shower light (it kept turning off after 10 minutes or so because it turned out to have the wrong watt bulbs) and fixed some of the recessed lights that weren't flush to the ceiling.

So after all the the little fixes, I made Peppermint Penguin Drinks (we were out of Kahlua, so no Dirty Bananas). Peppermint Penguins have Oreos, Mint Chocolate Baileys, Creme De Menthe, ice and milk. They are delicious. Then Mom and I challenged Dad and Ben in air hockey...they won. So Mom and Dad said their goodbyes to Ben since he was working on Saturday and we all headed to bed.

Saturday, Dad got all the suitcases packed and by the front door. But with a little sweet talking, Dad and Mom decided to stay a couple extra days. Ben and I were very excited. So while Ben worked on Saturday, Mom, Dad and I headed into DC to visit with Daniel. We went to Capitol City Brewery right next to Union Station. Dad was so hungry he ordered a bowl of chili as an appetizer, a black bean burger with cilantro rice and red cabbage (you can do the math on the sounds of evening from Dad after that lunch....) Along with that monster lunch, we had onion rings as an appetizer and were given complimentary soft pretzels. After lunch we walked around the Capitol building and then headed back to Daniel's townhouse where he packed up to spend the night at our house.

Sunday, we all headed out early to Skyline Drive. We drove about 25 miles into the park stopping at every overlook. Once we finished with our outing we went to lunch at Glory Days grill, shopping at Costco and back to the house for some Wii. Then Mom and Dad drove Daniel back into DC. Our visit was over.

Mom and Dad left this morning. Ben and I were both sad to see them leave. Although they were worried about "over staying their welcome" Ben and I would have happily had them stay even longer. A little over a week and we still didn't get to do everything we wanted. But we look forward to the next visit. :)

Our Fun Visit...

Our visit with Mom and Dad has been absolutely wonderful. Ben and I have been having so much fun. Sadly, our visit is almost done. But here is a recap of the past week:
Friday- Ben picked Daniel up from the metro station on his way home from work Friday morning. Mom and Dad showed up about noon or so. So we all made a trip to Costco (a must of course!) and picked up a pizza from there for lunch....they have really good pizza. That evening we made these huge sirloin steaks on the grill, which made everyone very happy.
Saturday- Ben had to work, but I took Daniel, Mom and Dad out for a little drive around Stephens City to show them the park and other little places. Then we headed over to Ben and my friend Julie's house for a cookout/pool party. That evening we came back to the house and watched the fireworks from the upstairs window. It was great because we could see the big fireworks display from the house and didn't have to worry about bugs or traffic. :)
Sunday- We went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel, took Daniel shopping for clothes and groceries, and took him back to DC. We had dinner at Bertucci's (a great little Italian place) and we were quite the noisy group. We weren't really all that bad, but we laughed a lot. :)
Monday-Ben worked again. Dad's poison ivy (from the last time they visited, two weeks prior) was still really bad so we decided to take a trip to the walk in clinic. 3 hours later, Dad was diagnosed as still having poison ivy, and was put on some meds. So then Mom, Dad and I went up to Costco where I found the most perfect kitchen table. We were in the Camry so I couldn't buy it just yet, so instead we headed to a gardening store where they had everything on sale. I needed to get some insecticide for our dogwoods and I bought Sparkler Roses for around our mailbox. I decided I definitely wanted to get the table from Costco to surprise Ben the next day, so we went back up to Costco, bought the table and tried to fit it into the highlander and camry...it didn't fit completely so we had to call in reinforcements (our friend Julie).
Tuesday- We planned to go canoeing on Tuesday. However, Ben came home from work really sick. He barely even noticed/mentioned the new table and went straight upstairs. He ended up having some pretty classic food poisoning symptoms (vomiting, etc). But then he started having some abnormal chest pains. After awhile, we were on our way to the ER. After about 6 hours, 2 IV fluid bags, and a shot of Dilaudid, the diagnoses was a "jolted" esophagus and a strained muscle from vomiting. And the doctor wasn't sure if it was food poisoning or a gastrointestinal virus. My money was on the food poisoning. He was sent home with two scripts. The one was Zofran, a med to calm the stomach and prevent vomiting. However, after taking this particular med his temperature shot up to 102.6 and he was having horrible headaches. Turns out that these are side-effects of Zofran. He hasn't taken anymore Zofran.
Wednesday-Ben was still not feeling super well (who could blame him!) so we took it easy. We took a drive to Middleburg. Middleburg is this cute little town in the middle of horse country. We went to Wylie Wagg to order Aida a new address tag and then to lunch at the Red Horse Tavern. On the drive back we stopped in the Virginia State Arboretum. Ben slept in the car while Mom, Dad and I walked around. It was beautiful. The building on the property was the old slave quarters which has been converted into dormitories for visiting students and scientists. Once we got back home, Ben took another nap and we filled Aida's pool and let her go "swimming." She ended up drinking so much water that she peed on the floor and even did a happy dance to go outside again (she stood at the door shifting her weight from one back leg to the other).
Thursday- Since Ben was feeling much better, we went canoeing (we took a raft instead of a canoe so we could all go together). We had a great time. We decided to go on a 7 mile trip. As soon as we got in the water we saw a deer and a crane. We saw several cranes throughout the trip, and some turtles, fish and even a beaver! The trip was a blast. Mom and Ben got a little sunburnt, but we would all like to go again sometime! I think Mom would even be up for a few more rapids!

So that is the update so far. We aren't sure what our plans are for tomorrow. But we are looking forward to another fun day. Here are some pics from the week: