Thackers On The Move: General Conference and the Bryners visit twice! 4/5 4/12

The Bryners stopped by for a couple nights on their trip to Williamsburg for spring break. Sadly our spring breaks didn’t match up but they stopped by for another couple of nights on their way back so we got in a great visit.

Our kids were in heaven! The weather was beautiful and the kids spent a lot of time out in the woods playing. They also became entrepreneurs by opening a rainbow loom bracelet store and flower store (the flower store turned into them selling anything they could find outside including rocks and pine cones along with the spring daffodils). They each made a little bit of money but they seemed more into the process than selling. Why didn’t I take any pictures of this?

We took a trip to the Washington DC zoo to try and get a look at the baby panda. Once again he was sleeping so we had to settle for viewing on the “Panda Cam". It was a beautiful day so there were masses of people who also had the same idea. We had our fill of the crowds and left after a few hours.

Why yes, Kelly is really wearing a chicken hat (It was “State Farm” day which meant free swag and pizza) and yes that is Ben pushing two kids while wearing a third and sporting some cool aviator glasses.

Melty Beads and Rainbow Looming during conference and Kelly cuddling baby Theo.

Zoobs made an appearance during conference as well and Ben displayed some real talent!

They Bryners came back the next weekend for more fun (and more Café Rio). It just so happened that the Saturday they were here was peak day for cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin and the weather was a perfect 70 degrees. We opted to ride the metro downtown and thankfully we live at the beginning of the line so we were able to get seats. Again…millions of people made the same choice we did. The Cherry blossoms where beautiful and now I can officially cross that off my bucket list.

Happy Metro Kids and Lucy with the Washington Monument.

We actually didn’t stay at the tidal basin for very long (we couldn’t walk easily because there were so many people). We walked back to the Washington monument for snacks and the kids ran around on the grass.

Lucy, Portia, Charlie, Eve, and Matthew with the White house behind them and Mathew and Charlie with the Lincoln Memorial in the background

We were trying to figure out what the best way to get home would be. The metros around the mall were completely jammed with people and we had 8 kids, 4 adults, and two massive strollers. We were able to solve our problem with food!! Shake Shack was a couple of miles away in Dupont Circle but we figured we would be better off walking a few miles, eating, and then getting on the metro there than sticking close to the mall. The walk was wonderful! The kids were gems, the street was shady, and the reward at the end was amazing. The cheese stuffed fried portabella mushroom sandwich was still tasty but the crispy crinkle fries were my favorite. Conrad ate the majority of mine so Seth was kind enough to order another round. We did find out later that week that metro had the highest level of ridership that day since 2010 (there were more people downtown than there were for the 4th of July Fireworks)!