(WARNING: this is a VERY long post.)
I decided to do a last minute road trip to D.C. to visit my sister, Remi, one last time before she moved to Seattle. My sister, Lani, flew out from Idaho so we had a fun sister vacation with the babies of course! I wanted to keep my sanity on the 10 hour drive with Aiden so I decided to break up the drive as much as I could. This meant stopping the first night at my mother-in-law's home in Charlotte, NC and then stopping the 2nd night at my friend, Chelsey's, house in Richmond, VA and then the 3rd day arriving in D.C.
Since we were all staying in the same apartment with Remi and her 2 roommates, we really had to get creative with the babies. This meant Aiden slept in the hall closet. Yip, I know that sounds really bad but it was a really BIG closet!! The pack-n-play fit great in there with plenty of extra room for a fan and cd player, etc to fit as well. Ashlyn slept in one of the bathrooms that was big enough for her pack-n-play so it all worked out great. Remi's roommates were so great and helped out so much with the kiddos.
The 1st day of sight-seeing was visiting the capitol. I have to say that the biggest adventure was trying to find parking in downtown D.C. It was a zoo!! AND a FORTUNE! Eventually we found a spot but then we realized we were going to be late for our scheduled tour so we had to take off running to the capitol with 2 baby strollers. Then it was a maze to try and find the ramp we could actually take strollers up to get inside of the building. We had to ask 3 different security guards before we finally made it. The tour was awesome and the building is amazing and the babies YELLED pretty much the whole time. Everyone on the tour kept on turning to look at the babies and we would have to run off to let the other people hear the guide. Eventually Aiden calmed down when I gave him a brochure for the building which he promptly chewed on for the rest of the tour. UNFORTUNATELY I forgot my camera that day so I'll have to wait to get pictures from Lani, but here are a couple from the outside of the building.
The 2nd day was crazy busy. We started the day out with a tour of the Library of Congress which was amazing. I love that building and I would love to go spend some quality time there researching all of the cool stuff they keep there. An funny fact that the tour guide told us was that when the building was being built there was a NEW metal that had just been discovered and it was MORE expensive than gold. Well the builders wanted to be able to show off a little so they purchased this metal and paid a small fortune to put it in some of the details of the entry way. "What was this metal?" she asked us. ALUMINUM!! How funny! She laughed and said that now they can brag and say they have tin foil decorating the main room.
The next stop that day was the Supreme Court building. We were able to see the courtroom because it was not in session and it was so neat to be at a place where such important cases are heard for our country. Originally there were only 6 justices but that changed many years ago to 9 justices. The courtroom also was originally in the capitol building but they outgrew the space and that is when they built the new supreme court building next to the capitol.
The final stop that day was the Kennedy Art Center. We were late again and ended up joining our tour 30 minutes late and then we were still there for another hour with the tour guide who rambled on and on and on and on...... Yes, I have to say that this is probably one of the MOST boring tours I have been on. Maybe if I actually knew who all the people were that this old guide was talking about I would have been more interested but I hadn't HEARD of ANY of these people. The only remotely interesting thing I learned was that the President of the U.S. has the MOST UNCOMFORTABLE seat in the whole house. The view from the roof of the building though was beautiful and was probably the best part of the whole tour.
The next day we went to the National Archives building and saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I was very surprised at how faded the declaration is. I probably only saw 4 words in the whole document that were not faded. What was cool is about 150 years ago (I think) they hired someone to copy the declaration onto a metal plate EXACTLY as it was written (same style of handwriting and same signatures,etc.) That way the copies they could make from the plate would be look identical to the original.
Before we got in to see the documents though we had to wait in a long line to go through security so by the time we got to the LONG line in front of the documents the babies were going crazy. We were so worried that we were not going to be able to get in the rotunda because we would have to leave for the babies nap time but LUCKILY for us the security guard saw us and directed us through a different door for the strollers STRAIGHT INTO THE ROTUNDA!!! I have to say it was really nice to be able to walk right into the room to view all of those amazing historical documents without waiting in line for an hour first!
Sunday we went to the Air and Space Museum and looked at the history of flight. This is where I had that little embarrassing encounter with the security guard where I asked him "How do you want me?" and he replied by saying "Dang, I wish my girlfriend would ask me that!" Anyway...
Ashlyn LOVED this museum because she loves planes. She walked around the museum pointing to each plane saying "plane, plane!" So Cute!
On the last day of sight-seeing we went to the Lincoln Memorial and WWII Memorial. I looked outside before we left and it looked sunny and warm so I thought a hoodie would be warm enough. OOPS, not warm enough at all! I was freezing because it was REALLY windy. Lani helped me out by loaning me a pair of gloves (both left hands so I had to wear one backwards which REALLY made it hard to take pictures with my camera because the fingers didn't bend the right way!) Aiden's morning was made when we came upon two BEAUTIFUL white dogs. "Doggy, Doggy!!" was what he yelled when he saw them and I knew I couldn't just walk pass them. We stopped and the owners let Aiden pet Gidget for probably 5 minutes. Come to find out these dogs are Pediatric Therapy dogs so they are actually trained to be wonderful with children and they even have their own website. Pretty cool.
Later that day we did a tour of the Holocaust Museum which is so so so hard to go through because you see all of the HORRIBLE and EVIL things that were done to the prisoners and how most people were oblivious to it happening. There were stories of the few people who stood against the Nazis and saved some lives but it just seemed so small next to the HUGE numbers of people killed by the Nazis. The tour starts with how Hitler started out with just small things that people would get used to and then he would change it to more and more drastic and terrible things. He started with putting in prison his political enemies and then socialists and then Jews but people didn't know that he was killing most of them. He burned books and artwork and did HORRIBLE experiments on people and it all just makes me so SICK to read about.
On the trip back to Georgia I did the same route home and stopped at Chelsey's house the 1st night which happened to be her birthday! We went to dinner to a Mexican restaurant and won some free chips and cheese dip. We then went back to their place and Tim (Chelsey's husband) made us some YUMMY homemade strawberry ice cream and then we all watched the Bachelor. Thanks Chelsey for letting me spend your birthday with you! Miss you girly!
The following night we stopped at Grandma's house and played outside in the warm sunshine. Aiden loved the swing but we also let him try out the trampoline which he thought was so amazing! He even tried jumping and it was the cutest thing since he is too light for his jumps to really affect the trampoline. :)
FINALLY the day came for Aiden and I to drive home to Dada and what do I see when I look out the window???? RAIN!! Yes, our final day of driving and we get rain. Oh well, I guess with all the driving I did, one day of rain during winter is actually pretty good. We made it home safely and were greeted with big hugs from Dada. Vacations are wonderful but coming home is the BEST! Thanks everyone for the fun trip!
On the way down we encountered 2 women one of which was PREGNANT and DUE THE NEXT DAY! She looked ready to have her baby on the mountain but she was determined to hike to the top. I guess she was VERY ready to get that baby out!
