Driving Home..The Short Story

Before we left our nation's capital, we made a detour to the quaint town of Georgetown.

It was so cute!

I would love to live there (for about 2 hours, then the Southern Belle in me would be homesick!).

We ate breakfast at a local hole-in-the-wall that made the absolute BEST omelet I have ever tasted!!

Then we stood in line for about 20 minutes at this yummy spot:

Georgetown Cupcake

Caitlin had asked if we could go there sometime during our trip because she loves watching their show on TLC.

Look at all that goodness!!!

They were THE best cupcakes (even better than our local cupcake place!).

I would have liked to have brought the entire case home with us, but we settled for seven.

Why seven you ask?

Well, we made up our minds to get four--one for each of us.

But then with all the yumminess staring us in the face, we just couldn't decide!

(They barely made the trip home!)

Then we made a drive-by of the Pentagon since we were so close.

And then began our LOOOOOONG trip home.

I could bore you to tears telling you about how many times I had to turn around in my seat to retrieve a lost car, Lego, stuffed animal, or movie.

Or I could tell you how many times we had to play referee from the front seat.

Or I could just count on both fingers how many times we had to stop to go to the bathroom.

But, if you have children, then you probably know that all that equals about 9,845!!!

It was sooooo much easier driving through the night when both of my angels were sound asleep.

(One of the best things we have ever done, and we would do it again in a heartbeat!)



Regardless of how hard the trip home was, we had a fabulous time!!

Fourth Day in DC

Since we had a late night on the Fourth, we let ourselves sleep in a little bit on Thursday.

And by little bit, I mean 8:00 am!

We rode the Metro back into downtown DC and got off on the Smithsonian Exit.

The first building we saw when we stepped into the sunlight was the Smithsonian Castle. 

It was beautiful! 

There's really not anything in the Castle anymore, although it was the very first building in the Smithsonian Museums and did house every exhibit.

From there we walked to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. 

Otherwise known as the Mint where they print all the money.

The only place you can take pictures here is in the Gift Shop.

(National Security and all!!)

 Caitlin was amazed at this stack of One Million Dollars!

 We found out that Caitlin is worth $1, 374,700.

But Harrison is poor! He's only worth $1,071,800!

Luckily we had on our walking shoes on this day because we walked to all the Memorials and Monuments that we had not seen yet. 

First up was the Jefferson Memorial. 

It was beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. 

Caitlin decided to hold Harrison in one hand outside the Memorial!

We were able to see the White House from the steps. 

Next on our tour was the FDR Memorial. 

Honestly, before researching this trip, I didn't even know this existed!

I'm so glad we visited it because it was magnificent. 

There was even a statue dedicated to his wife, Eleanor. 

And a massive statue of the great man and his dog. 

We then hiked to the Korean War Memorial. 

This was very special to us because Randy's Dad/Grandaddy served in the Korean War. We are extremely lucky he made it out alive unlike all these men! 

Then it was on to the Lincoln Memorial.

This was the one I was looking forward to the most!! 

In fact, I told my sweet (but whiny) children that this was the only picture I wanted from the day. 

They were amazed at how big the statue really is!

We could see the Washington Monument from the steps. 

Next up was the Vietnam Memorial.

This was built after I visited DC back in 1982, so I was anxious to see it as well. 

It's a long, long wall with so many names.

Just makes you sad to realize they never made it home.

After lunch, we headed to Ford's Theatre where Lincoln was shot in April of 1865. 

This is the balcony where he and his wife, Mary Todd, were sitting when John Wilkes Booth shot him. 

And we got to see the house across the street where Lincoln actually died.

We were finally finished with everything we wanted to see on this trip to DC!

I know there is much more, but we are saving some things for our return trip.

We hopped on the Metro at this point to make it to.. 

the Nationals Ballpark!

We got to see the Washington Nationals play the San Francisco Giants in a throwback game.

(You know we can't take a trip without throwing some sort of sports into it!) 

Caitlin and Harrison enjoyed all the ballpark food!

This was their dessert after hot dogs and chicken fingers--a $6.00 snow cone! 

The Nationals have a Presidents Race at the top of the 4th inning at every home game.

That's George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in the lead with Abraham Lincoln trailing them. Teddy Roosevelt fell as soon as he came out of the gate! 

It was neck and neck, but George ended up winning!

After the game, we rode the Metro back to our hotel.

It was late (11:00 pm), so we went straight to bed.

We knew we had a loooooong drive ahead of us the next day.

Third Day in DC--Fourth of July!

We were very excited to get to spend the Fourth of July in our nation's capital!

We had no trouble getting out of bed on Wednesday!

We rode the Metro Subway for the first time which made Caitlin and Harrison oh, so happy!

Funny story: When we came back from downtown, we weren't sure which stop was ours. Luckily, I took this picture before we boarded the train that morning, and we were able to see where to get off the train! Thank goodness for digital photography! 

We found a spot pretty quickly for the parade. 

Don't know why I have two pictures of us waiting for the parade to start, but you can definitely see how crowded it was! 

We felt pretty patriotic. 

And it was neat to see the "Redcoats." 

Uncle Sam showed up too.

 They recreated the Iwo Jima statue which was awesome.

As we were leaving to go get some lunch, I snapped this cool picture of my angels with that fabulous monument in the background.

 After watching the parade during the hottest part of the day, we decided we needed to cool off and get some lunch. What better place than the Food Court in the bottom of the Ronald Reagan building???

When we were thoroughly cool and our tummies were full, we made our way to...

the White House.

There were no tours on the Fourth of July because of all the security for the celebrations that night. 

We still enjoyed seeing where our Presidents have lived during each of their terms.

Harrison said that he wanted to live there too!

Maybe one day, Son...

We were a little exhausted from the sun as you can see...

They had to take a break while we were waiting to enter the White House Visitor Center.

Even the wildlife had to take a break in the heat!! 

 They reenacted the First Continental Congress at the White House Visitor Center on the Fourth of July and read the Declaration of Independence. It was neat to see actors playing the parts of real people in our history.

They even had a table set up so you could sign your own copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Both of them had to do this!

After all this reenactment excitement, we ate some supper then headed to find a spot to watch the fireworks.

We found a perfect spot right in front of the Washington Monument. 

They were so beautiful!

Caitlin took a picture of us to commemorate the 21st anniversary of our first date!

Can't believe it's been that long ago that I first met and fell in love with him!

 We were amazed by the show!

I snapped a picture of the kids as soon as the show was over right before we were almost trampled!!

No lie...there were so many people rushing for the Metro Trains to get home that they didn't care who they pushed and shoved!

Thank goodness we held onto each other and made it safely to our train and our hotel for the night.