The good ol' US of A, and a bit of Mexico thrown in for good measure!

After Helen repacking her case three times and Paul not understanding why his suggestions of "all you need is a pair of shorts" really weren't useful, we finally made it to Gatwick on time! We saw Kate Garraway of GMTV and "Strictly Come Dancing" fame in departures - A list celebrity or what?!!?

Ready for the off!

Our travel companion is Barnaby bear - from Year 1 at Helen's Mom's school - so he'll be popping up throughout the trip and sending postcards and photo's back to the children at school. So far he's travelled in Helen's bag as Paul says he's not getting caught at customs with a teddy in his bag!

There were only 43 people on the flight from Gatwick. Helen said it'd be nice as we could stretch out a bit on the spare seats. Paul said it'd be nice as it meant the food would be served faster! Typical!!
We flew via Bermuda (which looks really nice and can be added to the list of places to go!!). We got off for refuelling - and two people with only hand luggage decided they quite liked the look of Bermuda and were going to stay there, but decided not to inform anyone! Hence a delay followed while the cabin crew tried to figure out why a plane that left London with 43 passengers was now down to 41!

Route map, nearly arrived in Bermuda

Immigration at New York took about 5 minutes - unlike the 2 hours last time! But we knew it was too good to last and to punish us our flight down to Washington DC was 2 hours late. We finally arrived at midnight and met Simon at the airport, who drove us back to their wonderful house. Desperate Housewives eat your heart out - but without all the scandal obviously!!!

Gorgeous house!

After a much needed sleep after 24 hours of travelling we thought the best way to refresh ourselves would be to go shopping - obviously!! Janice took us to the mall and we dived straight for Bloomingdales and Macy's!
Shopping was cut short so Paul could watch the Liverpool game (on at 3pm here), so Janice and Helen went for a pedicure and left the boys to it!

Went into Washington DC yesterday (Wednesday). Saw the Washington Monument (but needed to be there at 7.30am to get a ticket to go up it apparently!!)

Washington Monument

Went to the White House - don't think George was home.

George and Laura's House

Walked along The Mall to Capitol Hill and then decided we'd pop into the "National Space and Air Museum".

Space Museum

Hours later the day had disappeared and we were still looking at rockets, missiles and Helen was being given a physics lecture by Paul everytime anything to do with satellites or radio waves came up! Was a really good museum though, and all the museums in DC are free so that was a bonus!!

Space Museum

Walked back down The Mall to the World War II memorial which was really beautiful

World War II Memorial

Met Simon back at the office and Paul proved he really is as sad as we all think so when he's not photographing radio masts he's taking pictures of Arqiva offices worldwide!

Geek

Stopped of at a nice viewing point on the way back home to look at the Potomac River, and much to Paul's delight there was even a radio mast on the opposite hill - hurrah!