Wednesday, July 22, 2009

DC 4 - Adventures in Babysitting

Up early today to drive into the city and catch our hop-on-hop-off bus. We decided to do the whole tour once to get a feel for where everything was and then hop off to see the things we want. We saw all of DC, Arlington, and Georgetown. It was a beautiful day! Later that night Cam would say “we had a crazy bus driver. We thought he was going to it someone and he drove a on the curb a few times”. All true, but it made for a fun ride.










We hoped off and started at the Smithsonian Castle. After a quick orientation we headed to the Museum of Natural History. As we walked across the Mall I could tell everyone was getting a bit cranky so we stopped for lunch first – hotdogs, but of course. The boys loved the Museum of Natural History! We stopped by the Archives, but couldn’t get in because the line was too long. We moved on to the Air and Space Museum. So much cool stuff to see there! The boys loved the space ships and all the astronaut stuff. They were also really excited about seeing the Wright Brother plane and Amelia Earhart’s plane (thank you night at the museum, but hey, it got them interested –right).

Museum of Natural History


Cool shot look out from the Air & Space Museum


Ice cream break


After the museum we took our first subway ride through DC. We went from downtown to China town… only to eat at Fuddruckers. Hey, don’t judge it’s really hard to find stuff those guys will eat. At Fuddruckers I swore I spoke a different language. It took me 20 minutes to order (no exaggeration) and even then I wasn’t sure they got it right. At the end of dinner Karsen came back from the bathroom and said “Grandma, I found a dime in the toilet”. UMMMM… awkward pause as we all consider what to do with him after he’s stuck his hand in this public urinal for a dime. Then I say “did you get it out?” – He responds – “ooh, no, that’s gross”… and the collective sigh of relief. After dinner we took a taxi over to the Lincoln memorial so the kids could try all modes of transportation in the city. Plus we were about to do a lot of walking. I wanted the kids to see the monuments at night because it’s SO beautiful! As we passed the Washington Monument my mom started to tell the kids that the red lights at the top were for low flying elephants. Cam’s response, “well, if there were flying mammals I’d be impressed”. Baha!
We got off and toured the Lincoln Memorial by night and it was beautiful. Lexi was really impressed with how DC looked at night. It’s really beautiful. We took a walk through the Vietnam Memorial and then over to the World War 2 Memorial. Seeing that Memorial by night was beautiful. Lexi has a great love for WW2 stuff and she loved walking around. We got a little lost on the way over and walking in the dark around DC at 11 wasn’t my best idea ever, but once we got to the memorial it was ok. We started the walk back down the side of the reflection pool to catch a cab at the Lincoln Memorial and it had been a LONG day of walking. Cam had finally had enough and asked to sit on the bench. I know that walk looks easy, but after 10 hours downtown ½ mile is forever to a nine year old. I explained that if we made it to the taxi stop he wouldn’t have to walk anymore. And queue one more classic response: He says “I think I’m going to have a new sickness – walk-to-much-itis”. As I try to recoup from laughing so much he says “I just made it up myself. It’s short for tired leg sickness”. Wish I knew where he came up with all of this stuff. We caught our cab and made it safely back to the hotel and CRASHED!

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