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lillis sits gleefully reading some novel that either is already or will soon be a chick flick as we prepare to depart jfk….next stop – istanbul!

lillis and i both loved all of the quotes on the various monuments. it makes me think that words used to mean something and that leaders used to lead more frequently and more dynamically. or as the hatter would say, the seemed to have been very much more much before.

lil and her sister look out over the reflecting pool (forever spoiled for me by forrest gump) at the lincoln memorial.

i love watching baby ducks follow their momma ducks around.

lincoln, our most conflicted hero. seriously, if you take the time to read these people’s words, you can’t help but be struck by what it was they were doing.

i told lillis if she looked back at me sitting on the steps as she walked away, i’d know she likes me…..only 2% of all people would get that, and about 5 or 6 people read this, so chances are that will miss the mark.

lillis was very touched by the vietnam memorial…..overwhelmed by the number of names. she really couldn’t be much sweeter.

i appreciated the childlike sentiment expressed here……but i’m not sure that these people did a great deal to secure my freedom by dying in vietnam. that’s what makes the volume of names so much more disheartening here. in ww2, it’s clear they were fighting for something great, that their deaths did ensure our freedom. i would hate to die wondering if it was worth it. that’s why i’m unsettled every time i see the vietnam memorial.

the korean war memorial. very peaceful and impressive.

lillis is still pretty, and flowers still make a good lillis backdrop.

the fdr memorial is another interesting one. i grew up loving the whole concept of fdr….all the roosevelt’s actually. even eleanor. that said, he was potentially twice the socialist of any president before or since. i think he was brilliant. he did great things that persist today. i’m pretty sure most of my friends would be forwarding all kinds of emails and making myriad facebook posts excoriating him were he alive today. i wonder if we’d feel differently if we were all lined up for soup?

jefferson (along with alexander hamilton) has always been one of my absolute favorite statesmen. consequently seeing alexander hamilton’s grave, and jefferson’s memorial within about 24 hours of each other is something of an achievement. i would later be dissapointed when the jefferson bible was not out on display at the american history museum.

the next day we parked and headed over to the capitol. i had surprised lillis by having it be her fake birthday and told her she had a surprise. b/c the line to the white house wraps around the treasury, lil had NO idea where we were. AFTER we clear security and are about to walk into the building, she realizes she’s inside the white house and has a mild freakout of excitement. i was concerned a sniper might take her down, but i guess she wasn’t evaluated as a threat. anyway, she loved it and it was very neat. thanks a bunch to Saxby Chambliss, via Julie Smith for getting us in on two weeks notice. lillis even got to go behind the ropes to look at the piano.

then we headed over to the capitol to take the tour there. next time i want the godfather tour where i get to go up in the dome. we had a great time though, seeing the dome, the chambers of the 1st supreme court, the library of congress, and lots of other fun stuff.

that night we did dinner with jeff and elizabeth (and the girls) out in mcclean, and had a good time eating and talking. OH, worth mentioning that we ate at vermillion in old town alexandria the night before. it was genuinely great. LOVED my meal and had potentially the best dessert of my life.

on sunday we met up with jeff and fam at the natural history museum for a bit, then headed over to the american history museum with melissa and jonathon. lillis was quite excited to see julia child’s kitchen (she is an aspirational cook and a huge fan of julie and julia).

we had a really great time; and in other important news, we were able to vet our proposed couch choice (pearce sectional in everyday suede) at jeremy’s house. it worked great for sitting up watching tv and was wide enough for spooning, so two thumbs up for pottery barn.

the rest of our pictures are here. enjoy!

lil and i were planning our ski trip and she decided we should go somewhere a little different. we usually end up in the park city area, but she was feeling adventurous. i asked her where she wanted to go….she said crested butte or jackson hole. we checked and delta had direct flights into jackson so we booked it and headed out west. sunset on the mountains was gorgeous as we flew in.

flying into jackson, you actually land in the middle of grand teton national park. pretty impressive and only a short 15 minute shuttle ride from the town of jackson (and the very nice homewood suites with the super-friendly staff and the free shuttles to/from the airport and the slopes). it was a really cute little town. it had great restaurants, a cool feel, and much more reasonable prices for food and “stuff” than most any other place i’ve been.

lillis liked their town square with the shops

and she particularly loved the antler arch (elk antlers).

the mountain was seriously steep.

we met people who had actually relocated there from other ski areas just to have access to more advanced terrain. it was certainly a little steeper than any place i’d been before, but it did have some beginner perq’s if anyone was going with a “mixed skill” group. #1 it seemed that the easy slopes were grouped all together at the bottom of the hill, #2 there’s a smaller mountain in the town that has 30 something dollar lift tickets, night skiing and tubing, and #3 it is a short drive to grand teton or yellowstone parks. also, skiers or any ski level can enjoy making jokes using the words “teton” and “jackson hole”.

team photo up on the hill

lillis wore my helmet to protect her little head. i’m not being precious, it really is rather small. anyway, the helmet looked huge on her and she was trying to cover it up for her picture. i thought she looked rather like the “great gazoo” but she had never heard of him. i forget she grew up on a farm.

here lil shows off some of her moves coming down a double blue

then we took a final shot at the end of our skiing to show that we’d both survived.

btw, another strong feature of jackson hole….music at the bottom of the resort every day at the end of the day and kids and dogs running around all over the place. really a nice setup they’ve got there.

we went out to dinner all three nights. night 1 – Gun Barrel Steak and Game House – AWESOME bison and elk. night 2 – mountain high pizza pie – solid and inexpensive. night 3 – Nikai sushi – FANTASTIC sushi place. well worth the (admittedly expensive) meal. when we got back lillis had a special moment with the moose we bought her. she was infatuated with moose on the trip (even though we never saw one). after a glass of wine at dinner (it doesn’t take much) she had a spirited conversation with the moose, trying to decide his name. she just kept repeating….”Maaarty…..JACK…..Maaaary……JACK…..Marty Moose sounds cool, but Jack is good because he’s from Jackson Hole.” in an upset, Marty won out.

the next morning we had one last brunch and lillis enjoyed the sunshine and the coffee before we headed home.

while the snow was mediocre, the resort was great, the town had a cool vibe, and the break from everything else was enjoyed. i highly recommend the place. here are the rest of the photos from the trip. enjoy!

oh, and finally, below is the video. nothing too crazy this year, as we only had three days on the hill and lil hadn’t skied in a 2 years and i was boarding a little gingerly to protect the ribs. so, no super high speeds, and no big aerials – particularly as most of my big aerials tend to end with big wipeouts.

Skiing and Boarding in Jackson Hole ’10 from charles breland on Vimeo.