Our Family: August 2015

After a very long travel day on Wednesday--up at 6 am to drive to SLC and catch our flight through Dallas Ft. Worth, landing in Raleigh at 5:00pm, picking up a rental car and driving 4 hours to our hotel--the kids slept in until after 10 am. We were surprised and VERY grateful! We had been debating about whether or not to drive into the city, but since we slept so long, there was no rush hour traffic to contend with. We zipped right in and parked at Union Station. We signed up to do a DUC Tour, and while we waited for that we checked out the Postal Museum, which was right across the street. It was air conditioned, which was great, and really neat. We only saw a tiny part of it. We learned a little about stamps and stamp collecting, the kids got to choose a few stamps to start their own collections, and then it was time to go. The DUC Tour was hot, but a great way to see the city without having to walk. We got a driving view of the memorials, Arlington Cemetery, and all the government buildings in town. The kids loved it when the bus drove into the water, and we even had a plane fly right over us as it landed at Reagan International. After the tour, with annoying duck whistles in hand,we went for lunch at Shake Shack, which was delicious, then rode the Metro to the Air and Space Museum.

We spent the rest of the day in the delightfully cool Air and Space Museum. There is so much to see there, and the planes are so amazing. We saw maybe half of the museum. We enjoyed the planetarium show, which gave us all a chance to rest our feet and learn about how stars are created. Cora was a trooper for most of the day, but around 7 pm, 30 minutes before closing, she kind of snapped and went nuts. All she wanted to do was ride the escalator up, then turn around and try to go down the up side. She did not take it well when I wouldn't permit her. After the museum closed, we strolled along the mall and then walked to a pizza restaurant called Matchbox. It was nice and the food was great. We were all so hungry! We Metroed back to Union Station, found our car, and collapsed in bed at 11, where Jens and Sylvie promptly revived and drove us crazy for an hour before falling asleep.

A word about our hotel. Through procrastination and inability to commit, we left our hotel finding very late. Like, the night before we left SLC to fly across the country and need a place to sleep late. We ended up in a Comfort Inn about 15 minutes outside the city, and it was just terrible. The employees were nice and all, but the second morning we realized it was a "dog hotel" and we were on the first floor, where of course, the dogs all stay. There was a lot of barking that morning, which the kids miraculously slept through. I did not. Additionally, the carpet felt sort of wet, the tub ran constantly and could not be turned off, and the "crib" that Cora slept in was held together on the bottom with velcro. I mean, the mattress was literally held into the bottom of the crib with two little pieces of velcro. I was afraid she was going to crash through the bottom at any minute. I wore my special head-to-toe jammies at this hotel--no skin showing anywhere! The location was convenient, though, and with how long we left things, we are grateful we had a place to sleep.

On Friday, we drove into the city after another morning of sleeping in. We parked at the Reagan building this time, which houses a little chunk of Berlin Wall--something Kristin and I searched for and never found when we were staying in Berlin many years ago. I'm glad I finally saw it. We walked by the White House and out onto the Mall, where we had a beautiful view of the WWII Memorial, the reflecting pool, and the Lincoln Memorial. We didn't walk the whole thing because it is far and it was so hot!

A well meaning stranger took this picture of our family in front of the White House, which we are completely obscuring.

Then we went to the Natural History Museum. Mike had reserved some learning kits about rocks and minerals and shells, so we spent some time using those, which was nice. The kids enjoyed the quieter atmosphere of the learning room. The rest of the museum was very busy! We ate a very pricey but good museum lunch, we went to the insect zoo, where Sylvie bravely held a grasshopper and a hissing cockroach, and they also watched a tarantula feeding. We checked out the dinosaurs, the Egyptology exhibit, and all the many stuffed animals. By the time we got to the gems and the Hope Diamond, Cora was going nuts, which was a shame because the displays were just beautiful. I could have looked for a very long time! She was so tired that she was just running around screaming and wiggling. It was pretty terrible. We finally got her strapped into her stroller and she conked out. While she slept we visited the wonders of the gift shop--gift shops seem to be the real highlight of every stop so far. Sylvie got a necklace and a tiny pink stone bear. Jens got some geodes.

We headed to the US Mint next. The tour was interesting and had changed since I was last there. I spent most of the time chasing Cora and trying to keep her quiet so others could hear. The tour guide was a little irritated with our group, because on top of noisy Cora, there were lots of talkers, and at one of the stations the workers provoked big laughs with a bunch of signs that they held up. Jens thought the Mint was really cool, Sylvie said it was the most boring thing of her life. Although (surprise!) she liked the gift shop.

We hustled back to the mall and into the American History Museum so we could see Old Glory, which was pretty great. I taught a FAME lesson about the flag a few years back, so it was fun to show the real thing to Jens. It is very large! I would have liked to look at more, but the kids were pretty much toast by then, so we packed up and headed out. We drove back to the hotel via Maryland and at dinner at Denny's, which was sort of great. There was no one else in the restaurant and breakfast food tasted delicious. Two days wasn't very much time, and there was a lot more we could have done and seen, but I think we did the right amount for the age and stages we are in. On the way back to the car there was some impressive lightning going on by the Washington Monument, and a cloudy, stormy sky. It was very pretty.

She is singing "Help me Rhonda"

Saturday we checked out of the dog hotel and headed south, along with every other person in the whole northeast. Traffic was a nightmare and the 4 hour drive ended up taking 7, but the kids were so tired the didn't complain. I was sad because I'd been hoping to visit historic Jamestown. We pulled in at 4:29--the gates closed at 4:30--and by the time we got to the visitor's center, we only had 15 minutes. They were not waving the $14 per person entrance fee, so we did not even go back to see the town or the archeological dig, and the museum with the cool stuff and the boats was likewise closing. We did watch them shut down the glass blowing forge for the night, which was pretty cool, and we drove the little scenic loop. The island definitely had an atmosphere to it. For dinner it was Jens's choice, Chili's, which ended up being pretty great mainly because they had a tablet with games on the table. Jens and Sylvie played the entire time and we had a very peaceful meal. Mike and I even split a dessert without the kids even noticing or clamoring for their own. It was sort of miraculous. We spent the night in Newport News (the hotel was a HUGE improvement!) and headed for the beach the next morning.

We enjoyed a week of relaxation with Mike off work and the kids out of school. In between packing and getting the house cleaned up for our big trip, we went to swim practice and picked blueberries.

We had our night swim meet, which is usually really fun. Sylvie swam both of her events and Jens swam one of his before the meet was called for weather--we had a lot of thunder and lightening headed our way. It was our last meet before we headed off on vacation, so we were a little disappointed that Jens didn't get to swim the rest of his events. But he still got a snowcone, so I guess that is the most important thing.

The next morning we had a garage sale/bake sale. The neighborhood garage sale was going on, so the kids got tons of traffic. They made $80 selling cookies, brownies, rice crispy treats, and lemonade. I cleaned a bunch of stuff out of my garage. Yay!
The plans:

Cora tried out her bike. She doesn't get it.

Then we cleaned everything, packed everything, and drove to Utah on Monday after swim practice. We had a day to relax and rest. We spent some time with cousins and Mike and his siblings and parents were able to squeeze in a family temple trip and dinner while all the in-laws and cousins hung out at Chuck and Heather's. The older cousins entertained the younger ones, and all had a fine time. Cora colored her legs pink with chalk!