D.C. Trip

This last week we decided to use Milt's Friday off to spend a 3-day weekend in D.C. It was kind of a last minute decision, but we got a great rate on a suite and decided to stay for a few nights (which was good, since McKinley then informed us of this truth: "Without a hotel, you cannot be on vacation." Interesting child, that one). So we drove down on Friday morning and got home late Sunday night, and didn't have any plan or outline of what we wanted to see or anything! It was a very different vacation experience for me...I usually have to find out where every bathroom and help desk is, and then map out our day accordingly! I hadn't been to D.C. since I was 14, so there was a lot of familiar things, but I had no idea where anything was! We literally metro-ed into the city and asked someone to point us to the White House, and we found our way from there (and even without a map for a good 3 hours at first!) But we had so much fun and it was really cool to see everything from the eyes of the kids. Plus we ended up seeing quite a bit in just 3 days, but we could literally go back and stay for a couple of weeks with plenty to see and do!

Here are some pictures from some of the Washington D.C. landmarks:

Our picture in front of The White House

The Washington Monument

Me with the girls in front of the Jefferson Memorial (my favorite place, of course!)

Me after pulling Kennedy back from climbing over the rope and disturbing the cool atmosphere inside (she's darling)

Milt and I at Iwo Jima, which was amazing!

McKinley in front of a great quote at the WWII Memorial (this wasn't here when I came as a teenager, and it was such a beautiful memorial!)

Kennedy in front of JFK's grave site and the eternal flame

McKinley at the Tomb of the Unknowns

We also got to go to a few of the Smithsonian Museums, which were as amazing as I remembered! They were actually really great for all of the kids, because there is so much to see and do! Of course, Maddox wanted to get loose and run around the whole time, and Kennedy has an uncanny desire to get over/under/around any physical barrier to get inside any exhibit (plastic half-walls, ropes and chains, you name it!), but other than that, it was amazing! These first couple of pictures show how Milt finally managed to keep Maddox from getting away...we probably got some funny looks, but it worked (for a time!)

Here are the highlights from the three Smithsonian Museums we went to:

The National Museum of American History is HUGE, and we only saw about half of it! Milt loved seeing the C3P-0 used in Return of the Jedi and Jerry Seinfield's puffy shirt, and the girls loved seeing Dorothy's ruby slippers and the First Ladies exhibit (with gowns and other items the first ladies owned). The bottom right hand picture shows McKinley with a photo that Ida McKinley owned of her and her husband. She was delighted to see her name! They also had a fun project where McKinley got to help build the world's largest Lego Light bulb. They had kids build big blocks of Lego's, and then they were all put into the HUGE light bulb you can see in the top middle picture. McKinley loved it!

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum was the number one museum Milt HAD to go to. HE was in heaven the second we walked through the door and he saw a couple of the Apollo modules. They really have some amazing things here! And Maddox became quite a fan too. There are a few places that kids can actually get in and see/pretend to fly an airplane and space shuttle, and he really let us hear it when he had to leave!

Top left photo: Milt standing in front of the airplane hanger display area. Top right: McKinley in the demo airplane (and yes, she did this pose without any prompting whatsoever...scary!) Bottom Left: A replica of the Hubble Space Telescope, which is HUGE! Bottom Center: Kennedy with the Wright Brothers (the plane they flew was there, and we didn't take a picture because we didn't even realize it was the real thing at first...we just thought it was a replica! It was so cool!) Bottom right: The actual Apollo 11 Command Module "Columbia" that carried astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins on their historic voyage to the Moon.

And here are a few pictures we took at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. This place was AMAZING too and we took a zillion pictures of the exhibits, which we will not bore you with looking through...just go here someday! We even got to see the Hope Diamond, which Milt was not that impressed with. I guess I should stop crossing my fingers and giving him not-so-subtle diamond hints (if he's not impressed with a ginormous BLUE diamond (he basically bleeds blue), I don't know if any diamond will be good enough for him to get me next Valentine's Day.)

Top left photo: Maddox and Milt looking at some Dinosaur bones, which Maddox loved! Top center: Kennedy looking at everything (people, insects, bones, the carpet, my shoes...you get the picture) in the hands-on room through her binoculars. Top right: McKinley and Kennedy looking at some of the animal exhibits. Bottom: Me and McKinley on the second floor overlooking the enormous and impressive African elephant that was 13' tall and was estimated to weigh 22,000 pounds.

We had a fantastic time, and the three literate members of our family even learned a lot! Kennedy and Maddox basically learned that just because they're 1) in the double stroller, and 2) staying at a hotel, it does not mean we are at Disney World (they got over it eventually, but I'm afraid the White House was a little bit of a let down for them when they were expecting an actual tour of the Haunted Mansion). But us big guys LOVED it! We'll definitely go back when the little ones get older to do all of this again, because there is nothing like learning American History by seeing it in person!