Quick Weekend Trip to DC

(Thought about splitting up this post, but I didn't. Get ready for a long one...)

We knew we wouldn't get to do anything over spring break (this week) since Darin is trying to finish up two papers for a conference he is presenting at next week, but when we heard about Darin's cousin's mission farewell in D.C. the weekend before spring break, it seemed like the perfect quick trip to tie in with a little Easter/Philip's birthday visit to my parent's house. Being that close to Williamsburg and not going was a little hard (especially with a good friend from Germany visiting and another good friend who just had a baby there), I only tried to convince Darin like 20 times to let us take a day or two to go down and visit (I'm such the supportive, understanding wife in his time of overwhelming paper stress), but in the end I'm just grateful that he was able to take the weekend off for us to take this fun little trip.

The kids fell asleep about 15 minutes into our trip which was money in the bank. Whhhatttt. We got to peacefully listen to a few episodes of RadioLab, my new favorite podcast. (If you haven't listened to it before, try the "60 Words" episode, or "I don't have to answer that"... pretty fascinating). 

Kids sleeping at the same time is just so rare these days.

We took the metro in to D.C. I loved watching Shae light up as we got on the train. He told us that the metro was his favorite part of the weekend. 

Belén seemed more interested in my camera lens cover than the metro.

We easily picked one of the busiest days of the year to go to the National Mall (Fourth of July might be a little worst). With Spring Breaks and Easter and the Cherry Blossoms, it was buuusssyyy. 

When we got into the city we went straight to the Air & Space museum and still had to wait quite awhile to get inside. The kids did so great with all the waiting. Shae looked at the letters on the museum and I took Belén up and down the stairs outside of the museum. She would have been content doing that all day.

When we finally did get in, we looked at a few exhibits, but couldn't see much due to the wall to wall people. We waited in some more lines to go through a few airplanes which Shae really wanted to do. We also pretended to put on our astronaut uniforms and go to space which he loved. 

After leaving Air & Space we ate lunch outside on the grass of the Mall. The weather was Purrr-fect. We couldn't have picked a better day weather-wise. Bright blue sky, sunny, 60s. Perfect.

After eating we tried to look around the Museum of Natural History, but again, we didn't last long, even less time here actually than the other museum. We literally could not get to any of the exhibits due to wall to wall people. We took the obligatory picture of us with the big elephant, let Shae crawl through the ant hill and got out of there. 

We were really flexible with our plans since it wasn't either of our first time going to D.C. and we'll have plenty of opportunities to go in the future. With the two little ones, we saw enough of the museums to make them happy and then really just enjoyed being outside in the beautiful weather. 

I am still in shock that both of our kids fell asleep while walking to see the cherry blossoms. The chances that they  BOTH fall asleep at the same time are so slim and this was a second in two days. Score.

We slowly made our way over to the cherry blossoms, Shae didn't even wake up until we were walking away.

Shae's experience with the cherry blossoms. 

 

Shae woke up saying, "Ice Creaaaaam..." There were food trucks/ice cream trucks everywhere, apparently even in his dreams. We went ahead and splurged and spent 12 bucks on three ice cream popsicles. Thankfully everything else we did was free (besides the metro so it didn't hurt AS badly as it could have, but really, 4 dollars each!)

 

I couldn't get over these trash bins that were piled high everywhere as we were leaving. CRAZY.

We took the metro back to our car and then headed over to Elizabeth's mission Open House. The house where it was held was just gorgeous. 

Shae loved this swing bed in one of the sun rooms.

He also had a blast playing down at this tree house.

There were some other kids down there when he first went and I just watched from a distance up on the patio. The kids were probably about 7 to 8 and did not want anything to do with Shae. Friendly little Shae just wouldn't stop trying to get them to play with him. At one point, I heard one of the kids turn to him and yell, "I don't like you!" then jumped on the zip line and sped away. Shae sulked, his shoulders fell, his head bowed down and he walked away. It kind of broke my heart watching the entire scene play out. I know we have a lot of that coming in the future, but it kills me to think about it. I know that kids will be kids, but seeing that was pretty eye opening to me about the importance of my role as mother and teacher to my children. I know that I can teach them to be kind, to be charitable, to be respectful to anyone they come in contact with. That is really important to me.

After the Open House (which I forgot to mention was catered by Cafe Rio!!), we were all exhausted so we checked in to our hotel. I did my first Hotwire Deal, like the ones where they don't tell you the hotel or the exact location but you get the hotel for a good discount. We weren't sure what to expect, but the Extended Stay America we stayed at was actually really nice. We were very happy. There was a nice little pull out couch for Shae to sleep on. There was also a little mini-kitchen (behind me in this picture) where we put Belén's pack n' play. (Please just ignore my son picking his nose on our bed in the this picture...)

Getting ready for bed after a long day. We forgot the sun screen...poor Belén. Her face was so red.

Sunday morning we went to church in McLean. Our kids were a bit of handful, unfamiliar church? I don't know what it was but they were not the best behaved. I took both of them out so that Darin could listen to Elizabeth's talk. I'm sure it was great :).

We stopped by his Aunt Melanie's house after the service so that we could grab a quick lunch and take some pictures. Shae just loved "Cousin Elizabeth," as he called her. He kindly photo bombed a few pictures they were trying to take because he wanted to be by her.

It was just so great to meet some members of Darin's family that I hadn't met before and to spend a little time with Ken and Melanie. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Thanks for letting us stop in and for playing with the kids!

My little Easter family. Hallelujah. Love these guys.