Our friends Glen and Rebecca had the opportunity to spend a semester teaching in Washington DC this year. I haven’t been there since my 8th grade trip, and Dustin had never been there, so it was a perfect time not only to visit them but also for us to visit the city.
We were going to drive, but we got a great deal on tickets. We got the flights there for $97 round trip each! Travel deal of the century that saved us so much time in the car. They already had an extra double stroller so we didn’t need to bring that, and public transit allowed us to travel as light as we could with the two kiddos in tow (ie no car seats). We arrived late afternoon on Wednesday and Glen met us at the airport and we made our way via the metro to Union Station and picked up dinner. We enjoyed great conversation and dinner together.
Glen prepared to start teaching that evening in the basement of the home, but prior to that we had a slight “emergency.” Kenley and Declan locked Reese (Kenley’s favorite doll) in the master bedroom of the house. Kenley was hysterical, students were arriving. This house was built in the 70’s and the safety unlock screw was stripped. So after about 30 minutes of attempting to get in the room, Dustin got lucky with a combination of a hammer and screwdriver and got the door open. Reese was saved and Glen was able to start teaching downstairs while most of us went to bed early after the trek with the kiddos. Dustin and Glen took a walk after class was over to see the Capitol at night.
On Thursday one of Glen’s students took us on a tour of the Capitol Building. The kids loved the “subway” that the congressman use to get from their offices to the Capital building. We had yummy burgers for lunch at a place called Good Eats. Super good, but they need gluten free buns in the future. The rosemary fries were AMAZING. That afternoon I think we actually got all five kids to take a nap! (win!) During this time Glen and Dustin checked out the Library of Congress. We cooked dinner that night at home, and we had fun taking the kids pictures on the Capitol lawn that night. Afterward Dustin and I splurged on a little walk to get gelato!
On Friday we had planned on going to the National Museum of American history, but when we got there it was closed for a big event. So we came up with plan B and headed to the white house next just to see it since Dustin hadn’t been there before, unfortunately all the tickets we could request in advance for the tours weren’t available for that day from our congressman’s office.
We had lunch and unfortunately I wasn’t clear enough with instructions on Princess K’s smoothie and I think she got a vegan protein powder with lentil and pea (which are the only two things she’s allergic to now) so we had to make a CVS run (thankfully it was around the corner) for some benadryl. Thankful as well it didn’t knock her out and she was still able to enjoy the rest of our day.
We headed to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. They had the actual Wright brothers first plane. That was really cool and Dustin wishes we could have spent some kid free time there to enjoy the place :). And the most random crazy part of the trip was that Princess K had told us on the way to the airport that two of her friends from school were coming to Washington DC that weekend, we thought no way, she probably just said she was going and they said oh me too. But we turned around and K was shouting look mom there is M! We were all shocked out of all the places in DC and the limited number of people K knows at 3.5 years old that we were in the same place at the same time. Fun memories.
We stopped at the Native American History Museum which had a great kids area. They got to stamp their “passports” at all the stations. We ended the night trying out &Pizza, the gluten free pizza was great. The next day Rebecca and I enjoyed a latte and everyone headed to the park while Prince K napped and I packed up. We headed out late Saturday morning. Since the traffic wasn’t bad Glen was able to drive us to the airport which was a bit easier than the public transit with both kids in tow. Crazy small world as someone Dustin knew from the WordPress community was in line right behind us at security.
Such a fun trip with great friends and wonderful memories with the kiddos.
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