here you go greg

per the insistence of my brother, i am going to write about his weekend here in D.C. my bro, and two cousins (sharon and erica) came out to visit me two weekends ago. they (in their infinite wisdom) decided to take a flight on thursday night, that would get them into DC at 12:43am... yes, on a thursday! and, what a thursday it was... it just happened to be the day when the big terrorist threat hit the U.K. airports were backed up, and the skies around the midwest were stormy. to make a very long story short, they didn't get into DC until 5 in the morning. and they didn't call us until 5:45am, at the end of the metro line.

they slept friday till 10, and spent the rest of the day downtown. nate and i couldn't get off work, so we joined them back at the house for burgers, corn on the cob and conversation around 6. after dinner, we rolled them away from the couches, and back into D.C. to check out the monuments at night. we walked by the white house, drove by the WW2 memorial, and ended up at the jefferson.

saturday we drove out to the shenandoah river for a rousing 12 mile canoe trip. well, it wasn't too rousing. the river was down, so the rapids were more like Class 1 than Class 2, but it was still fun. in the morning we ate breakfast at the apple house (i'm forever hooked on those apple cinnamon donuts), then made it to Front Royal Canoe Co. we then pushed off, greg & erica, me & sharon, and nate alone in the kayak. a few highlights include: persuading greg and nate to swim across the river (because manly men can't back down from a challenge), the G-250 (i won't even explain), and greg doing a dance for some very happy middle-aged women. let's just say that my brother has the moves! we ended the night at red, hot, and blue--followed by icecream at Coldstone. and my favorite indiana jones movie, the holy grail one.... yikes, i forgot the name. oh, and one thing to prove that we've all grown up... sharon and i canoed the entire way without yelling at each other or canoeing into any inatimate objects. oh sharon, i'm so proud of us--- how far we've come since high school.

sunday we headed to church, then to the original pancake house for lunch. from lunch, straight to arlington cemetery. i'm not a huge fan of cemeteries, but we did watch the changing of the guard, which is always neat in its own way. also saw the tomb of jfk for the first time. sharon bought a book on jackie, which i must say opened my eyes about the kennedy family in ways that i wish i had never known. and i only got through half of it!

last weekend i went back home (to il) for my cousin's wedding. it was so nice to see the family, and just relax. my grandma actually remembered me, which was a pleasant surprise, and my dad seemed to like his big russian hat. my family is afraid that he's going to actually wear it to church. i'll be offended if he doesn't ; )