Visiting the Capras in Virginia

We've been back home from our trip to Virginia for the past 3 weeks and I'm just now sitting down to write about it. Tisk tisk. I knew I'd get lazy about writing in this thing!

Okay, so Jason has three scheduled breaks this year - each break is only 1 measley week long. Is that crappy or what?! Anyways - his first break started on Friday September 28th and we headed out as soon as Jason got home from work, because we didn't want to waste any time. We were on our way to Virginia to visit Jason's family for a few days. Did I mention we were driving? A total of 25 hours one way. Ugh. I hate driving long distances. Especially since it takes up so much of a very short vacation! Oh well. We originally planned on going to Virginia for Christmas (since Jason's next break is over Christmas), but we decided to come out for this break instead because Jason's brother Tony is scheduled to deploy to Iraq (a second time) in November, so he won't be there for Christmas. We thought it would be nice to see him before he leaves since he'll be gone for a good chunk of the year. Just seeing Tony in his hotdog costume in person made the long horrendous trip well worth the hassle. ;)



So anyways - we headed to Dallas, TX to pick up Jason's brother Michael (who's stationed in Oklahoma) who met us at Aunt Shelley and Uncle Jim's house. After visiting with a couple cousins for a few minutes, we headed out. Jason had the first shift, so he drove from about 130am to 630am. I was supposed to be sleeping to get ready for my shift, but I couldn't really sleep much since I wanted to listen to all of Michael's war stories (he had just arrived from Iraq a few days earlier). I took over driving at 630am and ended up driving almost all of the way to Fredericksburg, VA (about 17 hours including stops). I got more and more excited the further we drove - not only were we getting closer to family, but there were more and more trees and the grass was getting greener! I love trees and there aren't enough of them here in San Antonio. That's one of the major things I don't like about San Antonio. No trees and dead-looking grass. Blah! Anyways - I stopped driving when we were about an hour or so from Jason's parents' house (since Katie started crying hysterically and nobody could comfort her). She did extremely well up until that point. Poor little baby! It was way too many hours for her to be riding along in a car seat that only faces the back of a seat. Kristin, on the other hand, had plenty of things to occupy her time (movies, crayons, toys and books). And she understood that something good would come of all this driving...her Grandma and Grandpa Capra and all of her many uncles and auntie-poos!



We finally arrived at Jason's parents' house around 1230am early Sunday morning. It was an exhausting drive, but it was well worth it to see everyone again! We've missed them so much! We used to see them every weekend when we lived in Maryland from 2002-2006, so it has been very hard living so far away from them. : ( Tony, Angie and their five kids were there and Jason's sister, Rachel, skipped a couple days of work and school to drive up from her place in Charlottesville, VA to come visit too. Everyone was there...except Jason's brother James. Or as we like to call him - Yimmy. He's stationed in Germany and lives in a castle (well he lives in the servant quarters of a castle anyway - but that's close enough!). He was supposed to come out, but I'm not sure what happened with that. Oh - and Rachel's husband, Nate,wasn't there either. He's also in Iraq and he won't be back until July 2008.
We stayed up visiting for a while, then finally fell into bed...only to wake up a few short hours later. But that's okay. I never felt like I got enough rest, but that didn't matter - we didn't have a lot of time to visit! I didn't want to waste it snoring the day away! I'd catch up on my sleep when I got back home. The only stinky thing about visiting people during a non-holiday time - is the fact that the people you're visiting still have to go about their normal routines. So Tony, Angie and their kids had to head out Sunday evening to go back to their house in Maryland - because most of their kids are all in school. Pssh! Stupid school! ; ) Rachel had to head back home 3 days later and Jason's Mom still had to do all of the things she usually does with the kids (driving each one here and there to sports, music lessons, drama club, youth groups etc). It makes me tired just thinking of all the driving she does everyday! Eek!



So for most of our very short trip, we spent just visiting everyone at the house, going to Chuck E. Cheese, shopping with Rachel, taking pictures, playing games in the evening and having a few drinks (with the family members who are old enough to drink that is). Jason was also somehow able to squeeze in the making of another family movie/picture slideshow (like he's been known to do now and then) near the end of our visit. We also drove a short trip to Tony and Angie's house up in Maryland (along with Michael, Rachel, Jacob and Katie) to spend the night. Did anyone notice that I didn't mention Kristin? That's right! She didn't come with us! She spent the night with Grandma and her auntie-poos. It was her first time spending the night without either one of us there with her. It was a big deal for me...Kristin, on the other hand, didn't seem to give a rat's patootie! Little turd! She was more than happy to stay with her aunts and be entertained the whole night through. Although, I did call her the next afternoon to see how she was doing - and much to my surprise, she said, "I was so worried about you and Daddy! You didn't come home! I miss you!" Little cutie - she does care about us...or at least she pretends to. ; ) After a late night of drinks and watching Tony, Jason and Michael try to outdo eachother with their hand-to-hand combat moves, we went to bed. The next afternoon, we decided to go visit the the Spy Museum in D.C. I had wanted to go to the Spy Museum the whole 4 years we lived in Maryland, but did we ever go? Of course not! I can't imagine why we couldn't make it when we only lived 25 minutes away from it. Tisk tisk Tricia. Tisk tisk. ; ) Anyways - it was a lot of fun. Very interesting. The only sad thing was - that we weren't allowed to take pictures. Sniff sniff. I love taking pictures. Oh well. The gift shop at the Spy Museum was amazing! My friend Laura - just might wet herself if she ever walkd into that gift shop. ; ) After picking up a couple of things for Tony and Angie, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was called "The Shocking Liar." It was a device that you strap your hand to. After calibrating it (by answering obvious questions about yourself - i.e. name, hair color etc), one of your friends or family members interogates you with questions that you have to answer truthfully. If you don't, you get shocked! After I drooled over it for a while (thinking of how much fun it would be to ask people questions and see if they answer truthfully or not), Tony bought it for himself and we tested it out as soon as we got back into the car to head home. It was so much fun! I couldn't stop laughing at all of the funny questions that were being asked of everyone - and who couldn't enjoy watching someone jump when they got shocked for lying about something?! Hahahaha!!!! When we got back to Tony's house, we played another few rounds with Angie (since she missed out on the Spy Museum because of the kids being in school). After dinner, we headed back to Fredericksburg. Tony had appointments the next morning that he couldn't miss, so he met us back in Fredericksburg the next evening (our last night in VA) to visit and help Jason finish up his movie. After another night of Scattegories and drinks, we called it a night and went to bed.







We headed out the next morning on Friday October 5th. This time, Jason drove most of the way and I probably only drove about 5 or 6 hours. I was relieved not to have to drive much - I was completely exhausted from all of the driving the week before and from never catching up on my sleep. Who knows what would have happened if I had drove anymore than that! We arrived back in tree-less, humity-drenched San Antonio sometime in the afternoon on October 6th. It was both nice and not-so-nice to be back home.

Our short trip had come to an end and now it was time for Jason to go back to work and for me and my little monsters to get back into our routine. I don't know what we'll do for Jason's Christmas break. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to go and how to make the best of a ridiculously short vacation? Let me know if you do! : )

If you want to see Jason's movie of our visit, click on the link up above (under the "Links" section) for "Jason's Movies on Youtube." It's called Capra October. If you want to see more pictures from our trip, click on the link for "Tricia's Pictures."
Wow! This is going to be a monster-size post! Sheesh! I promise any posts from now on will be much shorter and to-the-point...or at least I'll try! ; )