In October, we needed to head to Virginia for some meetings, so we decided to tag a DC Vacation on before the meetings began. It was so AWESOME!! -- All that I hoped for, and so much more! We have dear friends that are on staff at Capitol Hill Baptist who let us stay at their home for the five nights we were in town. They live in a parsonage on the church's property, 5 blocks behind the Capitol building, so it was perfect!
We spent Wednesday afternoon, all day Thursday and Friday on the Mall and in museums. We walked -- A LOT! I live in Asia. I'm used to walking. That is NOTHING compared to what we did in DC. Thursday night we came in and I was so tired -- my feet were throbbing, my hips were aching, my calves were sore.... It was pitiful! I soaked in a hot bath before crawling into bed and sleeping so soundly! My kids were amazing! I was shocked at how well they did. There was one time we were walking back to our friend's house, up hill, and my feet were killing me, but I held my tongue! I decided if my 9 and 7 year old kids can get there without complaining, I could too! What a great example of cheerfulness they were!
So (mainly for my records) this is what we hit:
Wednesday: (our plane landed at noon.)
Museum on Natural History
Union Station for dinner
Modes of Transportation:
Feet, Subway
To make our museum tours more exciting, before we went, I made a scavenger hunt for our kids to complete in each place we planed to visit. (They had to do activities, answer questions, and take pictures.) I based most of my questions/requirements on the movie The Night at the Museum Part 2. (I think that is our all time favorite movie!!) In the above picture my kids are pretending Rexy is attacking them!
Thursday:
Air and Space Museum
Washington Monument (Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside it because of the earthquake!)
World War 2 Memorial
Lincoln Memorial
Vietnam Memorial
White House (both sides)
Roosevelt Memorial Park
MLK Memorial
Modes of transportation:
Feet, pedi-cab (a bike with a trailer on the back)
Above: The kids are "flying" planes at Air and Space.
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| He's holding the monument!! |
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| Check out that blue sky! Oh, it's good to be in America! |
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| Can you say GREEEEEN grass? WoW! |
This day was exhausting, but SOOO awesome! My favorite thing we did on this whole trip was hire a pedi-cab driver to drive us around DC for an hour+ at night! The city was absolutely beautiful! We actually met the driver on our way to dinner. So, he gave us a lift to our restaurant, then we called him to come pick us up for our night tour.
Because it was nighttime, our camera wasn't taking great pics; so you don't see any of the memorials in those shots, but I figure that's OK. My kiddos are pretty cute!
Friday:
Supreme Court
Capitol
Library of Congress
American History Museum
Old Post Office building
Modes of transportation:
Feet, taxi
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| President Pedo |
Saturday it was rainy or misty all day, but we planned to hit the National Zoo. Since it wasn't really raining hard, we borrowed a few umbrellas from our friends and took off. Because of the weather, the zoo wasn't crowded at all. (We also didn't take any pictures!)
Modes of Transportation:
City Bus, Subway, and of course, feet!
On Sunday we went to church in the morning and evening, and spent time hanging out with some dear friends in the afternoon. It was a prefect way to bring our vacation to a close. When we were heading to Union Station to catch a train to Richmond on Monday morning, our host commented on how easily we got around the city. He said he had never seen any one maximize the various forms of transportation DC has to offer like we did. :) I guess living overseas has made public transportation seem normal to us. Within six days we rode an airplane, taxi, subway, public bus, minivan, pedi-cab, and train (as well as walked a ton!)
For your final viewing enjoyment, I'll leave you with some pics of our breakfast at Union Station before we boarded the train.
3 comments:
Looks like fun!! We love D.C.!! You all look great and the kids look bigger. Savannah is absolutely gorgeous in the last photo!
great pictures!!! what a FUN & educational family trip!!! what a wonderful time making great memories!
Great pictures and stories, Aim! In the early ones, I was looking closely and thinking, "Is that brad wearing glasses???" and then the later ones he clearly is! Has he always had glasses? I seem to remember something about needing them but not wanting them...or maybe I remembered wrong! Anyway, you all look wonderful and what a great time you had! I'm so glad you were able to take that trip. Memory making for sure!
Miss you, friend, I WILL call one of these days...
Rachel
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