Elizabeth flew into National around 1pm on Thursday and Brooklynne met her at the airport. Then Evan picked them up and they went to meet Kelly for lunch.

After a good sandwich, they left Kelly to her Corporate-Executive crew and went to look at the Christmas trees on the Elipse. There was really no place to park, so Evan dropped the two of them off and decided to circle the area while the girls took a look. Evan then saw a place that looked like a good spot to just pull over and wait, but unfortunately, the secret service didn't like his makeshift parking spot and proceeded to run his plates and question him. Soon they realized he was harmless, so they sent him on his way and he picked up the girls again.

Next, the three Travises went up to the National Cathedral. They spent most of the rest of the afternoon listening to the organist practice. Then, Brooklynne left to meet me for small group and Elizabeth, Evan, and Kelly went to dinner.

Small group was good. Bill and Sandy steamed crab legs for us and Zach and Aileen lead us in a discussion of jealousy, which I thought would be a weird topic, but it turned out to be really quite interesting to talk about. Then, as we were finishing, Evan, Kelly, and Elizabeth stopped by the Green's house and ate dessert and got a full tour.

Elizabeth went home with us and we spent way too long talking and catching up before going to bed. Elizabeth also did the honor of flushing icecubes down the toilet to invoke the snow (a NOVA school kid tradition).

That night, it did snow and the snow was enough for Brooklynne and Elizabeth to both get out of work for the day. So we slept late, ate pancakes and then headed into the city again. This time, we went to the Hawk and Dove Tavern on Capital Hill for a late lunch. Then I went to the Madison Building of the Library of Congress to do some research, and Brooklynne and Elizabeth went to the Jefferson Building to take the tour. The girls were really impressed, and they got some good pictures of the ornate reading rooms.

Check out this ornament on one of the trees inside the library!

When the library closed, we met Evan and Kelly again for dinner. but before we found them, we witnessed a drunk guy's pants fall off in the middle of a busy intersection. Man, that was crazy! Anyway, we had a good dinner and dropped Elizabeth off at the airport to fly home.

But before calling it a night, we took the opportunity to challenge Evan and Kelly to a round of Settlers of Catan. We went to a coffee shop to play and it was funy to see some of the looks we got, especially from this guy who couldn't stop talking to this girl about snakes. We're not the weirdos here! Anyway, Kelly beat us all in a competitive game and we went home feeling like we got alot of good quality time with the family.