National Mall with the Kids

The forecast for today was beautiful (mid to upper 60's, sunny, clear), and I desperately needed to get out of the house with the kids, so I decided we'd be adventurous and take the metro downtown to wander. So after lunch we walked to the metro (.4 miles) and rode downtown.  No problemo.  Once we got downtown it was time for Baylor's bottle, so we walked from the metro to Lafayette Park just north of the White House.  Jonathan met us on Pennsylvania Ave and walked with us to the park and helped out for just a couple minutes before he had to go, so it was fun to see him all dressed up in his uniform.  He mentioned he'd probably be getting off a little 'early' (like around 5 instead of 6), so I said we'd wander and meet him back there to go back together on the metro.  At that point it was only about 2:00, so we had 3 hours to kill.  We took our time walking to the National Mall...like it literally took 30 minutes to go a few blocks.  There's fence along the sidewalk for a lot of the way and the kids felt the need to walk up on the wall along the fence.  Good thing we weren't in a hurry.

So we went to the Washington Monument first.  They kept asking if they could run circles around it...without their 'tethers' on.  No way, Jose.  Me and Baylor ran with them for just a little bit, but that was it.  We walked all the way around it and then made our way to the WWII Memorial and then took a break on a park bench (a little out of the way) to change Baylor's diaper before walking along the tidal basin to the Lincoln Memorial.  Then UP 144 steps to the Lincoln Memorial before SLOWLY heading back to the White House.  And I mean SLOW.  They were pretty tuckered out by that point and they'd ask me to carry them and I just had to hold their hand instead.  We stopped a few times to rest on park benches and pretty sure Corben came close to falling asleep one time.  We got back to Lafayette Park right about 5:45 and I fed Baylor (Jonathan met us there about 5:50...he didn't end up getting off too early, but probably a good thing with how slow we were. lol) and we headed towards the metro with a stop in McDonalds for supper.  Metro ride back and another .4 mile walk back home.  All in all we probably walked about 5 1/2 miles.  Think they'll sleep pretty good tonight.

Incidentally, this is what Jonathan looks like in his uniform.  One of the first things Rylee asked when he met us was, "do you have chocolate for us?" lol 

This isn't from our trip, but I did a video of Corben saying "Washington Monument" because it's cute. :)

All day long long they kept picking flowers and picking up leaves and sticks off the ground and carrying them around.  And Corben...every time I wanted to take a picture he'd try to put his arm around Rylee.  It was really cute.  

I tried to get the Capitol in the background, but it was kind of far away.   But boy this is a cute one of them....even if they are gritting their teeth like they're trying to kill each other. lol

Looking towards the Lincoln Memorial from the Washington Memorial

Same view, but zoomed in.

WWII Memorial. Rylee couldn't wait to get here so that she could "give her leaf some water." 

And then she saw one penny a few feet away and got one foot half an inch in the water (with her tennis shoes on) before I realized what she was doing and pulled her back.  I knew we had a lot of walking left to do and did not want to deal with blisters from walking in a wet shoe!

Heading to the Lincoln Memorial

They're on a Land Before Time kick right now and Rylee was Little Foot.  Corben:  "I'm ducky, yep, yep, yep!"  As you can imagine, this was really slow going.  Not long after some seagulls flew over pretty close, so I knew that was my chance.  I told Rylee that seagulls really like little girl's bums and that they were excited that hers was such an easy target up in the air like that.  Problem solved. lol (Corben only did it for a few seconds to begin with, so it wasn't really an issue for him)

Pretty accurate of how all pictures start out. lol

Love this one. :)

We made it!

Baylor made it, too. ; )

At this point things started to get out control and we were our own little side show...seriously, the Japanese tourists were taking pictures of my kids sliding down the steps on their bums with me holding their tethers.  They really got a kick out of it. 

Making our way SLOWLY back towards the White House.  We were on an out-of-the-way walkway and they wanted to stop and rest on a bench.  I'm very sure that if we had stayed here two minutes longer than the 5 minutes we stayed, Corben would have been asleep.

A rough sketch of our route.  Kind of confusing because of the overlap.  We went to where the '4' is first and then turned around and went south.

I think next time I'll try to take a stroller.  My poor kids.