Where Did the Summer Go??? Recap Part 1

 Wow, I cannot believe that the last chance I had to post pictures was nearly two months ago.  It's been a whirlwind around here.  This has been a great summer and I'm sad that school starts the day after tomorrow.  I'm going to miss these kids so much.  I love having some time to myself but there's a huge hole in my heart when they're gone for so many hours in the day.  However, I'll save the mama-blubbering for the back-to-school post and just recap the summer here.

The first week of July, Benjamin finished drumline camp and went to FSY camp (church camp) in Frostburg, Maryland.  Bella finished FSY camp and went to Trail to Eagle (scout camp) the same day.  So Kelly and I divided up.  He took Bella and spent the rest of the week at home working while Christian, Peter, and I took Benjamin to Maryland and spent the rest of the week in Washington DC.  We definitely got the better deal.  Bella and Benjamin both loved their camps.  Sadly, no pics from either camp, but lots from DC!  

The only picture of Benjamin at FSY - when we dropped him off in his room.

Our first stop into DC was the Washington DC temple.  

Then we checked into our AirBnB and crashed for the night.

Day 2 was the Fourth of July, so we got the star treatment in DC.  The city was at it's best.  We saw Joe Biden's cavalcade drive by (windows too dark to see the president) and pull into the white house.  We watched the big parade, and we saw all the major sites and monuments.  The weather was perfect and it was a wonderful day, minus the unfortunate fact that the holiday and the parade altered all the public transportation routes and times so we ended up having to walk nearly all the way home.

Peter was so funny during this trip - refused to take nice pictures with any well known monuments, but would stop at the most random places, strike a pose and yell, "take my picture!"  So my camera roll is full of pictures like this gorgeous one by a fire hydrant outside the congressional office building:

  

But also like this one - my best attempt to both hold him still and get a shot of the Martin Luther King monument.  Epic fail.

   

Day 2 we did tours of all the major buildings - the capitol, the library of congress, the national archives, etc.  So many fantastic things - the original Gutenberg bible, the original declaration of independence, constitution, and bill of rights.  Made me teary with reverence.  So amazing.

Had to get some pics with our fellow Michigander, Gerald Ford, and the Utah founder and prophet Brigham Young.

Another "Take my picture" at this random pillar:

When we'd had our fill of famous, old documents, we took the bus over to Georgetown University and explored the school and neighborhood.  That campus had so many Harry Potter-esque buildings.  It was so fun to explore.

Day 3 we did the Smithsonians - Air and Space, Natural History, American History, etc.   Peter didn't care one bit about any of it except for this dinosaur head on a stick he found in the gift shop.  That was far and away the highlight of his whole experience.

All my days are getting mixed in my head now.  Somewhere in there we found time to visit the National Zoo.  The pandas were pretty cool.  In other ways, Detroit and Toledo zoos are just as good.

On our final day we headed over the Virginia to visit the Pentagon, my old house, school, and neighborhood, eat sushi, and play in the creek I spent hundreds of hours in as a kid.  Peter, however, had other plans.  He started vomiting all over himself as we passed the Pentagon, cutting that visit short and making everything else a little more tricky. 

He perked up some while at the creek, but barely hung on in the restaurant, and vomited again at the Smithsonian's Air and Space museum in Chantilly. I sat with him while Christian explored the museum alone and then we called it a day and drove on back to our hotel in Maryland where we would pick Benjamin up the next morning.  I think Peter was just worn out because his illness only lasted until he'd had a good night's sleep.  I think we'd just worn him ragged.

It was a wonderful week in our nation's capitol and my old home. Other than the oppressive swamp-like humidity, DC is a fantastic, walkable, clean, friendly city.  Great public transportation, tons to do and see, and wonderful greenspaces for hiking, biking, etc.  I loved it there and so did the kids.

One funny DC story - we'd planned our tour of the capitol for 9:30am so we could hit that first and then have an open schedule to take our time at the other sites.  However, when we got there, they refused to let us in with our water and food.  I'd packed food for the whole day for all three of us with the plan only to have dinner back at the apartment in the evening.  I tried a couple different entrances in the hopes that a different guard would elicit a different answer.  No luck.  "Come back after you've eaten your food," they each suggested.  Eat all the food we'd packed for the day at 9:30am??  I couldn't bear the thought of throwing it all away and then spending a fortune for food throughout the day, so I walked a ways away and found a patch of bushes where not many people went, pulled out all my food containers, and stuffed them under the bushes.  Then I poured out my water bottles and went back.  I thought I was good to go, but no, I also had a bottle of spray sunscreen which wasn't allowed.  I was not going to throw away my sunscreen right before spending the day walking around in the sun!  I was too far inside now to take it back to the bushes.  So I walked around the corner by the elevator and stuffed it behind a pillar.  The guard thought I'd thrown it away, made no further objections, and let us in.  As we waited for the tour to start, I started to wonder, 'what if they find that bottle of sunscreen and think it's a bomb and review camera footage and see that I put it there and I get arrested right here in front of my kids?'  I started getting really panicky and tense, but as the minutes passed and no one came to haul me off, I figured we were in the clear and forgot about it.  As we finished the tour and were on our way out passed those elevators, I remembered the sun screen and went to find it.  It was gone. Bummer. That was a brand new bottle!  But then we passed the guard station and there was my sunscreen!!  "Excuse me sir!" I called to him from behind the security ropes.  "That's my sunscreen.  Mind if I take it back with me?"  He looked from me to the sunscreen and back, muttered to himself, "Ugh, I was supposed to throw that away," and then picked it up and handed it back.  Success!  Saved by laziness!  Upon returning to the bushes, all my food was there too!  So I didn't lose a single item and we still had a whole days' worth of food.  Luckily no other building had rules like that.  The only remaining issue was our empty water bottles.  That problem was solved at the Library of Congress - another funny story.

I walked around that library so carefully looking for a drinking fountain and couldn't find a single one.  Finally upon exiting, I asked a guard at the door if he knew of one in the area.  "Oh, right in there," he said, pointing to one I'd just walked past and hadn't seen!!!  Ugh!  But now to re-enter would mean to stand in that huge security line again!  "Can I leave all my stuff with you as collateral and just take my empty bottles back in the exit and skip the line?"  I plead.  He shook his head.  I put on my best pouty-cute blonde face and explained that they'd made us pour out all our water at the capitol but now I have these thirsty kids.  "Come here," he said, gesturing down the path.  "Great, still not letting me in!  That pouty face worked so much better in my 20s," I thought.  However, he must know of another drinking fountain down that path, so we're ok.  We walked down the path but not to a drinking fountain, but rather to another guard station.  He opened the station, and told the other guard in there, "They made her pour all her water out at the capitol.  Let's get her some water."  The other guard grunted in exasperation and said, "That rule at the capitol is so dumb."  Then they opened up a large case of refrigerated water bottles and handed us as many as my bag would hold.  "Thank you, but you don't have to give us so many!" I protested.  "It's your tax payer dollars that are paying for it!  It's your water!" he said, laughing.  The kids laughed and guzzled the cold water.  Now we were even better off than before!  What a memorable experience and a perfect day.