D.C. trip (continued)

Okay, folks, my apologies on the newest photo collage. For those of you with Facebook accounts, you can check out more photos there, otherwise, you will have to put up with my photo collage-mania. For whatever reason, this blog does not care to digest photos in groups larger than three, so to decrease my own frustration with my technological ignorance, I just prefer to create a collage and share that way. Someday (probably never) I will attempt to fix this problem. If you know how to solve this dilemma, please send a tutorial my way. Again, my apologies.


Saturday:

Up bright and early with the rest of the D.C. area burbs, we were on the meto and headed back into the city for the Cherry Blossom Festival and the Kite Festival, all taking place in, around or near the National Mall. We arrived, squished ourselves out of the train with everyone else and decided that first, we'd finish up with any museum business that didn't get taken care of yesterday. Henry, Bryce and I went back to the Museum of Natural History. Henry just HAD to introduce Bryce to his new friend Darwin at the evolution exhibit, and take one last look at the dinosaurs and ancient cultures rooms before moving on to dead presidents and memorials.
Jake and Chelsea generously volunteered to take Wynne to the Air and Space museum to see the fast rockets and airplanes. This was a big step of independence for the little guy, being the first time he has been separated from family and done something with friends all by himself. Proud as punch and lifting off the ground like a little rocket himself, he held Jake's hand and Chelsea's hand and headed to the museum with his best buds.
Sometime later we all met up, enjoyed hotdogs and half-smokes (these are sausages, not cigarettes) and walked and walked and walked and walked some more, seeing kites of all colors surrounding the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial (where Wynne declared,"what! we're going to that stadium!"), the FDR memorial (where Henry hijacked the camera and took 200 pictures of the various waterfalls and statues), through the Cherry Blossoms along the Potomac, to the Jefferson Memorial (where we lost Wynne's glasses.) Whew! If you are saying, "Wow, that is the longest run-on sentence ever." It is because that is exactly how it felt going from one place to the next with 3000 other people (or more) packed all around us. It was a good time, but a crowded one at that. Lovely and crowded.
The boys had walked all this way, all day by themselves and were beginning to lose it so we decided to head back to the Metro station (which felt like a bazillion blocks away) at the Smithsonian stop. Nearing this station, with Henry on Bryce's shoulders, and Wynne on mine, we noticed that the queue just to get down the escalator to the platform was stretching across the mall. Yikes! We walked on in search of Dim Sum. This is what the boys had decided they needed at the time. Specifically, every kind of chinese dumpling available, ever made. Finally, we found the Federal Triangle stop (not as far as we feared) and made it to China town for a Dim Sum experience that was delicious, but perhaps a bit too much for all of us. The combination of our slap-happy boys and the loud "house music" we'll say made for some videos I will refrain from posting, but will keep in my files for future bribery. The boys were done! We escaped the restaurant quickly, even if not so quietly, grabbed a chocolate crepe from a vendor for dessert and headed back to our hotel via Metro train.
We stepped out of the station in Alexandria and noticed things were all too quiet, and where was our hotel shuttle bus anyway? Only to find out that the shuttle stopped running about the same time our children did. Thank goodness for Chelsea, we called her and she kindly came to our rescue. Thank you Chelsea! We returned and counted zzzzs.

Sunday:

Rainy weather kept us from wanting to go back to the city, so instead we were off to Monticello. We made a quick stop at the Prince William Forest for a short hike, but the boys were a bit hostile about going for a hike after walking around the city for 3 days non-stop, so we cut it short and went on over to the Jeffersons'. Monticello was lovely, even in the rain. I cannot begin to describe what an interesting and amazing place this is. The tour, however, proved to be a bit more than a 3 year old was willing to handle, so we didn't stay too long after to explore. And that is pretty much the end of this adventure. I'll post another soon.