Visit from family - part two

On our second day of outings we headed down to Washington DC. We wanted to explore somewhere new. Robyn heard that the Postal Museum had some interesting things to see. It was actually really kid friendly and they all had fun picking out stamps to bring home.

always getting smashed penny souvenirs 

Next we headed over to Capitol Hill to see if we could tour the Capitol building. They had some space in a tour, but we had a bunch of stuff we could not bring in from our picnic lunch. Michael was amazing to volunteer to stay behind. I took Miriam and Simon inside for the tour.

Levi insisted on walking, so Grandpa hung back with him

Going Downtown to Celebrate

On Saturday Trevor and Robyn invited us to go downtown to celebrate mine and Trevor's birthday at Fogo de Chao. We are not ones to pass up a delicious meal of meat. After we ate we decided to walk over and do a little sight seeing at the White House.

It was fun to go out with Trevor and Robyn. We love having them live close by.

Mount Vernon

On Friday we took Miriam out of school and went to Mount Vernon with cousins. It ended up being a pretty cold and windy day, but we made the best of it. We hadn't been back in a while so we were excited to see it all again.

Mansion Tour:

Walking around the grounds:

For the first time we went down by the river and explored. We had never seen this part of Mount Vernon before.

Lastly, I can't end this post with out mentioning Simon's birthday. He was so nice to postpone his birthday wish to go bowling for one day so we could hang out with cousins. I hope he still had a very happy birthday.

Downtown Washington DC

We were so excited when we found out Laura, Ashley, Natalie, and her kids were coming out to visit us for their spring break. Unfortunately it didn't line up with our spring break, but we hope to make the best of it. Our first outing was Downtown to the Natural History Museum. We arrived first and looked around the rocks and gems while we waited. Miriam took my phone and I ended up with a lot of lovely pictures of rocks, including some nice selfies. Once everyone else arrived we spent some time looking at bugs, animals, and dinosaur bones.

After some lunch we headed over to the American History Museum. As usual the kids really liked the transportation section. They especially loved pretending to pick the noses of the maniquins. 

Gravelly Point

We wanted to take the kids somewhere fun for Labor Day weekend. Michael had heard about a park called Gravelly Point. It is right next to Reagan National Airport, so you can watch the airplanes take-off really close. Although it was really loud, I think the kids liked it. In between planes Miriam and Simon threw rocks into the river. After we had our fill of planes we went to find a spot for our picnic. It was a lot of fun to get out and do something different.

On our trip to South Carolina we discovered Kilwins, a delicious "ice cream store" (as our kids refer to it). We found out they were opening a store in Alexandria and decided to go to the grand opening. Sadly we didn't win anything, but we enjoyed our delicious ice cream. Levi was terrified of the moose!

We ended up in Georgetown

Over Spring Break I thought it would be fun to take the kids to the zoo. Michael's Mom and I packed some snacks and loaded up the kids. It took a little bit longer to head into DC and we figured it was just a little bit of extra spring break traffic. Once we crossed the bridge into DC we were only four miles away from the zoo. It ended up taking an hour to go those four miles. It was all down-hill from there. Once we finally got to the zoo all of the parking lots were full. We thought for sure we would be able to find street parking, it was a no go. We finally drove along to the front entrance to the zoo and saw that there was a very long line of people waiting to get into the zoo. I have never seen it as crazy as this. We quickly decided we better find somewhere to have lunch and headed over to Georgetown.

So, two and a half hours later we finally got out of the car and decided to have lunch and explore Georgetown. Although the kids were sad to miss out on the zoo I have to say I have the best kids ever. They were understanding that there was nothing we could do and were just happy to be out exploring the city. We rewarded their patience with cupcakes after lunch. Miriam and Simon wanted me to stop and take their pictures everywhere. (Somehow I never get them in pictures with Grandma... I need to do better at that.) It ended up being a really nice day to walk along the river. I am sure grateful for my three little amazing travelers.