One Last Hurrah

    Tuesday night (July 24th) we had everything pretty much packed up and ready to go. We were supposed to have help to load the truck at about 7. Of course, at about 6, we had a thunderstorm warning and rain was pouring down as hard as I've ever seen it there. Jeremy was getting a little nervous, but it mostly stopped before the guys from our ward showed up, so we were only dealing with a heat advisory instead of that PLUS a thunderstorm... It was so hot and humid, even that late in the evening! After about 8:30 I finally packed the kids up and took them over to our friends' house (they were out of town, and said we could stay there!). It was so heavenly to leave the chaos of our mostly empty (but still needing to be cleaned, and cluttered with odds and ends) house and go stay in theirs'... Everyone slept really well, and we were all ready to complete our move the next morning.

    Wednesday morning we dropped the kids off at another friend's house to play while Jeremy and I scrubbed and dusted and cleaned for about 3 hours. One small plus to having such a small place is that it took less time to do a move-out cleaning. :) We got on the road finally at about 12:30 PM, it seems like, but ended up beating my parents to D.C. because we had the best traffic we've ever seen on the way up there! It helped that it was a mid-week afternoon, I guess. :) We got checked into our hotel, and didn't have to wait too long for them to arrive. We were all so excited to see Grandpa, Grandma, and Spencer!

Looking down from the 10th floor (I think) in our room.

So happy to see them!!

Sadly, our hotel didn't have a pool, so instead we decided to take the metro to the Mall and walk around a little. We thought the Library of Congress might be open, so we walked all the way from the metro station by the Smithsonian castle down past the Capitol building, to the library (which was not open to the public anymore at that point), and over to Union Station. It was after 7:30, but it was still quite warm, and we were grateful for shade anywhere we could find it!

Our first metro right! I'd never been on a subway before!

Little sweetheart

Pics from the "back" side of the Capitol.

Spencer outside Union Station

Inside. It was kind of like a cross between an airport and a mini-mall...

The next day we spent seeing the Museum of Natural History, one of the art museums, the Museum of American History, and the Museum of Air & Space. The kids were slightly unimpressed with all the walking, and we were all a little wilted from the heat and humidity whenever we had to change buildings.

The "Smithsonian Castle"

THIS one was pretty hard to keep track of. She just
wanted to run away from the rest of us...

Checking out some animals at the Museum of Natural History

We were a little worn out after a busy day Thursday, but Friday morning we (just our little family) headed back to the Mall area and checked out the Library of Congress. Thankfully by this point we had figured out where all the elevators were and didn't have to take strollers down the 2-3 story escalator that made me a little dizzy more often than not... The Library of Congress was amazing! Since we used the LoC cataloging system at BYU's library, I've always been curious about it in general, but the inside was so amazing! On one of the lower floors they even have some children's reading rooms, and we happened to get there just in time for story time. Jeremy was sweet and took them to that so I could explore a little, since he had seen the Library on a previous trip. 

Down taking one of our last metro rides. Their faces mirror how they
felt about D.C. at this point.

The really long escalator I didn't love.

Looking down into the main reading room at the Library.

In the lower levels, just after story time.

After that we went through the tunnels that led over to the Capitol's visitor center, and ate lunch there before we checked that out. At this point we were pretty tired, and didn't know how much more walking in the heat our kids could handle, so we decided to head to our next hotel. It was out in the suburbs more, (National Harbor, MD) near the resort my dad's classes were at, where they would be staying for the next week. Traffic was -ridiculous-. It took us over an hour to get there. It was a very interesting Comfort Inn. A strange mix of old and new, with a very helpful owner. It, thankfully, had a pool, and we took the kids swimming. Probably their favorite part of the trip, I would guess... ;-)  After an hour or so of that, we got cleaned up and went over to my parents hotel to eat and celebrate my birthday, which would be Sunday.  The whole National Harbor area was pretty impressive quite resort-y with lots of shopping and touristy sights and sounds. The restaurant we ended up eating in had good food, but was probably one of the louder dining experiences I've ever had!  After we ate, we walked down to the harbor and had some ice cream. We wanted to see my parents' hotel, so we walked up there, too. It was pretty huge, and pretty amazing. At this point it was after 8:30, and I don't think Katy had had a nap. She actually fell asleep in the stroller, and transferred to her car seat, and transferred to bed, without really waking up. None of those things ever happen...

This is what the traffic looked like... for a long time!

At my loud birthday dinner, with my mom trying to entertain Katy behind.

That boy...

Thankfully, the harbor had a kid-friendly fence!

My mom and dad

With me

This pic is a little blurry, but you can see part of the cool playground
equipment on the beach. His leg is there, too, out of sight of the pic.

Our poor, exhausted 2-year-old

My parents' hotel. That shorter glass part is probably 15-ish stories high,
I think. I won't bore you with a picture of -our- hotel. :)