On to Washington D.C.

After spending the day at Williamsburg, we hit the road again, this time for Washington D.C. to visit my sister Lindsay and her family.  We were all very anxious to get to Lindsay's house (only a three hour drive) after walking around all day.  Unfortunately, we hit major traffic.  It set us back at least an hour or so.  It's really hard to sit in traffic when you are anxious!

When we finally made it to Lindsay's place there were smiles all around.  The boys piled into Lindsay's apartment and laid on the floor.  Little did they know what laying on the floor meant.  Apparently it means it's time to wrestle.  Colby knows this rule well, so when he spotted the boys on the floor, he took off running and ended up on top of Trevor!  As Trevor tried to figure out what had just happened Colby had already moved on to Kaden!  Lindsay quickly informed the boys of the invitation they were giving Colby by laying on the floor.  It was pretty funny, Colby never looked so happy!

Since we arrived late we didn't take very much time setting up sleeping arrangements.  The boys just slept on the floor in the front room.  They didn't mind sleeping on the floor . . . that is until the morning when Colby woke up.  Yep, you guessed it, Colby saw another opportunity to wrestle!  Good thing my boys love to wrestle.  Colby is quite the challenger though.  I think the boys were a bit surprised by how rough Colby can be.  It was all fun and games when Colby was winning, but Colby is used to wrestling only his Dad (who I'm sure lets Colby win).  Once my boys started wrestling back Colby wasn't quite sure he liked wrestling anymore.  One thing I love about little kids is they rebound quickly.  Once my boys settled down and were looking away, Colby came back for more!

Before we leave on a trip I always make sure we have a sweater or coat for all of the boys.  I get cold easily and so do some of my boys, so even though Chad balks at the idea I pack something warm.  This trip, however, I wasn't thinking clearly and I only packed our light coats.  Of course, we wish we had something warmer on many days, but we had to buck up and deal with it.  Tanner is the most sensitive to the cold.  He kept asking for blankets while we were at Lindsay's and that gave Lindsay an idea.  She had given Cameron a snuggie of sorts (I think as a joke).  It is basically a footless sleeper with a hood and socks.  It didn't quite fit Cameron, so Lindsay offered it to Tanner.  It was way too big for Tanner as well, but he didn't mind.  He thought he was pretty cool!  The sleeper is all blue and it reminded us of Violet from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (you know, the one who turns into a blueberry).  To pull the look off, Tanner stuffed the sleeper.  We all got a good laugh!  Tanner was mortified of me taking his picture, so he put the hood on and covered his face.  I assured him that no one could see his face in the picture.  Tanner was afraid of the picture being posted to the blog - I guess he had reason to be worried, but hey, you can't see his face!

We happened to come visit while my other sister, Layne, was also visiting.  She had come to help Lindsay with her new baby girl!  It was fun to see Layne and be able to help Lindsay as well.  We all decided to go to the National Mall to see the cherry blossoms.  We have seen them before, but Layne has never seen them.  Unfortunately, there weren't many blossoms to be seen.  This year the weather has been really weird and that messed up the normal timing of the peak bloom.  We were able to see some trees in bloom though.

We walked down to the Tidal Basin and found very few trees in bloom, but we decided to walk around and check out some of the sites.  We have all been to DC before, but it we have never walked all the way around the basin.  It looked like it would take a while, but it was actually a really nice walk.  Before our journey, though, we had to stop for lunch.  It was a bit chilly, but that's nothing a cookie can't cure!

During our walk we stopped several times to take in the view and take some pictures.  The Thomas Jefferson Memorial is always a favorite photo op spot.

I also love to take pictures of some of the fun and beautiful things along the way.

Devon and Austin had fun jumping with Dad as we walked.  I'm not sure if they were jumping over cracks or just jumping.  Either way they were having a great time!

The monument we were planning on visiting was the new (at least new to us) Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.  It was very impressive.  It begins with a wall of famous and inspiring quotes.

Then it opens up to a massive statue of Martin Luther King Jr.  It is carved out of a huge piece of rock.  It is very awe inspiring.  I enjoyed reading all of the quotes (something I don't normally have time to do).

The boys enjoyed having a little fun while being on their best behavior!

Colby and his new best bud, Trevor!  Colby hardly left Trevor's side the entire weekend.


The next Memorial along the Tidal Basin is the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial.  This is one of my favorite memorials on the mall. I love the use of water and statues.  Roosevelt did a lot of good for our country and really looked out for the average american.  His memorial is very quiet an unassuming.  In fact, many people miss it because it doesn't stand out as many of the other memorials do.

We enjoyed walking around the memorial.  The boys enjoyed testing how close they could get to the water without falling.

The kids all did a great job while walking around, we only had a few small squabbles.  They were over with just a little bit of love!

We decided to skip the Jefferson Memorial and just enjoy the rest of the walk around the Basin.  As we walked around we caught many beautiful glimpses of the Washington Monument among the trees.

Devon showing off his super human skills!

As we headed back to the car, we spotted a patch of Cherry Blossom trees in full bloom.  We quickly headed over to the trees to take some pictures.  The trees were very beautiful!





I wanted to get a picture with Layne, so I asked Kaden to take our picture.  My camera is pretty heavy, so I wasn't sure what kind of picture I would get.  Kaden must have wanted to capture the perfect picture as well because he just kept taking our picture.  It paid off, he got some great shots!!



When Layne and I caught up to Lindsay, we had Kaden take a picture of the three of us.  Again, Kaden took several shots and did a great job!

We didn't want to get stuck in DC traffic, so we left a little early and drove over to a really fun park Lindsay goes to occasionally.

This park was amazing!!  Not only was it huge, but it was so cool.  There were several different play areas with many different kinds of play structures.  They even had a little road running through the playground - complete with traffic signs!  The boys, of course, were in heaven!

They couldn't explore everything fast enough.

It was fun to watch them all run around having fun.

Tanner didn't want me to take his picture, so we played a little friendly game of hide and seek . . .

. . . but I caught him!

To end our fun day out, we decided to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  Dinner was delicious and I got to hold Cambria! My only complaint was the sun.  It was blaring in the window right on me.  Luckily, I had forgotten to take off my sunglasses, so I wore them for most of dinner!  After dinner we had to sample some cheesecake!  It was also delicious.  I ordered the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake and Chad got the Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake.  Both were divine! The boys all got an ice cream sundae with their meals.

We had a wonderful day hanging out with our family!  It was great to be together again!