Touching a real moon rock
I don't really have any other good pictures to post from the day but that was definitely not all of the excitement. After we left the Air & Space Museum we headed over to the National Aquarium. That was a good time but honestly, it was a little bit of a let down. For being the "national" aquarium, it was pretty small. It was actually in the basement of one of the Federal government buildings. So we had to go through security...which was fun. After the aquarium we headed back to the hotel to rest for a few minutes.
One side note...I am not sure why exactly but I swear, 95% of the time that Kevin turned the TV on, SpongeBob Squarepants was on. Seriously, I have never seen so much SpongeBob.
We decided to venture over to Union Station for dinner. Again, I couldn't talk Kevin into Pizzeria Uno so we settled for Johnny Rockets. He enjoyed it. And since I am a pushover when it comes to Kevin, we stopped by this bulk candy store where you buy a box and fill it with whatever you want. So, $9 (for the smallest box they had) and 30 minutes later, we headed back to the hotel.
I guess because it was the first day, Kevin wasn't worn out enough so he hit the pool while I read (yes, I bought The Bourne Identity at the airport...I forgot how much I like to read since I never have time to do it for fun). Kevin made quick friends with a family in the hot tub and told them all about his adventures for the day.
It was a long but great first day. I don't think Kevin has ever fallen asleep so fast after hitting the pillow.
8/18/07 - Saturday
The one thing we knew we would be doing Saturday was the International Spy Museum. As mentioned before Work Rachel and Rob were in DC the same weekend so we had planned to meet up for the Spy Museum on Saturday. We just had to plan the rest of the time around it.
The Spy Museum tickets we got were for 3pm. We decided we would check out the breakfast buffet at the hotel. I wasn't that excited about it since it was like $15 for me and $5 for kids but let me tell you, I have never seen Kevin eat so much!! Seriously - eggs, bacon, half of a huge waffle, a slice of french toast, yogurt, strawberries, a danish, milk & OJ. He made every dollar count, and then some.
After breakfast we decided we would head over to the White House that morning. Here are some pictures from the journey.
This was where our first mini-crisis of the trip occurred. As we were making the journey from the back to the front of the White House, Kevin discovered that he had lost his Spiderman sunglasses. He was really broken up about it for a minute but since we had no idea where to look for them, I did what any reasonable mother would do in that situation...the bait and switch. I distracted his attention long enough to get him to the CVS that was on the way back to the Metro stop were we replaced the Spiderman glasses for Batman glasses. Crisis averted...all was well again.
We headed back to the hotel and I caught a 20 minute power nap while Kevin caught another episode of SpongeBob. Then after a quick lunch at Cosi's (and no, Shayann, I didn't not get the BLT, you must trust me), it was off to the Spy Museum.
Next time you are in DC, I highly recommend the Int'l Spy Museum. We weren't able to take pictures in there but there is some really cool stuff on display there - all kinds of hidden cameras, bugging devices, etc. Kevin's favorite part, no surprise here, was crawling through the air duct. He must have done it 5 times.
Another side note - one of the unexpected moments for me that came out of our visit to the Spy Museum was the realization that Kevin is getting old. In one of the last parts of the museum they showed a short movie about why spy tactics were still needed in the world today. One of the clips in the video was of the attacks on the World Trade Center. I immediately looked at Kevin and the blank stare on his face made me realize that he had no idea what that was. He was only 18 months old when it happened and we had never really talked about it. I told him briefly what it was and that we would discuss it later. It was just really crazy and humbling to realize 1) that it has been 6 years since 9/11 and 2) that my little boy is really at an age where I can no longer shelter him from the ugliness of this world. By the way, we did have a talk later about 9/11 and Kevin's response was "why would someone want to kill so many people?" I know I didn't have a good answer for that one.
Anyway, back to DC fun-ness. We again hit up the gift shop, this time on assignment from Shayann to bring home some "spy gear." She wanted night vision goggles but we had to settle on some binoculars with a night vision scope. Naturally Kevin wasn't going to go without some spy gear of his own so he got a "mobile spy ear" (car with microphone on it that you can pull back and send in to listen on conversations in the other room - very cool).
On the suggestion of Rachel & Rob to check out a really good smoothie place at Union Station, we returned for the second night in a row. Actually, it really is a great place to eat with kids in DC. There is something for everyone and it is on the cheaper side. This time we had a slice of pizza (again not Pizzeria Uno - I gave up) and grabbed a smoothie to go.
Below is a picture of Kevin at the Metro stop at Union Station. By this point he had the whole Metro thing down. We bought a weekly pass so we didn't have to worry about the fares every time so we really got into a good routine with the whole thing. I would give Kevin his ticket as soon as we got off the escalator (and he would be right ready for it), he would scan it and hand it back right as I was coming through the turnstile behind him. You would have thought we were professionals.
After we got back from Union Station, Kevin posed for some pictures in the courtyard outside our hotel. These are just a couple examples. He picked all the spots and poses (which many turned out to be the same pose)....what a weirdo.
We really did just crash and burn once we got back to the hotel. We were exhausted. Another long but exciting day.
8/19/07 - Sunday
The basic plan for today was to spend it at the National Mall (or as Kevin said with air quotes "The Mall"). Short Hair Rachael gave Kevin an awesome DC map for the trip, which was super helpful. Unfortunately, Kevin took the suggestions on their to heart and we had to obey to the T. The instructions for the Lincoln Memorial (which was the absolute must see on Kevin's list) said that it is best at night. While I agree that it would be best at night, to Kevin that meant we could only see it at night. So the plan was to go do the Washington Monument in the morning, hit another one of the Smithsonian Museums and then head back for the Lincoln Memorial just before dark.
Now, one of my favorite parts of the trip is that we did what we wanted on our own terms. The lack of planning did hurt us a little bit this day though. The plan was that we would go early and try and get tickets for the Washington Monument. We started the day off with a room service breakfast, which Kevin through was pretty awesome but it put us a little behind schedule. By the time we got there the tickets for the day were gone. So Kevin and I had to have a little heart-to-heart about the plans for the next two days. We had already decided what we were going to do Monday (don't want to ruin the suspense for you...) so we were trying to decide if we should try to get tickets again tomorrow and cancel those plans or if we would just visit the Washington Monument from the outside and make sure we get tickets on the next trip. Kevin agreed he could wait until next time, but only after he lectured me about making sure to get tickets ahead of time next time.
The weather wasn't the best (rain drizzles/showers) so we decided to go hit a museum and hope it would clear up. Since the Museum of American History was closed (and to quote Kevin "booooooo!!!"), we opted for the Museum of Natural History, which actually was great. It is really amazing that you can spend an entire day at the museum but you can! We ended up having lunch in the cafe there and then we decided to catch the afternoon IMAX show. I was a little concerned with the choices, Lions or Sharks in 3-D. We decided on Sharks. It was actually really cool. There were no shark attacks, it was really just about all the different types of sharks, what they eat, and how they interact with the other fish/creatures in their environment. It was really interesting and Kevin loved the 3-D. He kept trying to touch the sharks & fish. He had the biggest smile on his face the whole time.
Here are a couple pictures (the others didn't turn out too well unfortunately). Kevin loved the dinosaurs and the ginormous quartz for some reason. And let me also explain now, since you will see it in 90% of the remaining photos for the day, that is a porcupine puppet (named Morgie) on Kevin's hand. Exactly...we couldn't avoid the gift shop! Although, I got my souvenir there as well - a really cool rock sculpture of the Washington Monument.
We then started our hike toward the Lincoln Memorial. And for those of you who have not been, I do mean hike. We put in several miles that day! We did stop briefly on our way to watch a free karate demonstration that was going on on the lawn by the Washigton Monument. We stopped for a couple pictures at the World War II Memorial along the way but were hurrying to get to the Lincoln Memorial so we could be there before/after dark. (I opted out of the other war memorials. I figured Kevin might still be a little young to fully appreciate them this time around). Once we got to the Lincoln Memorial, we took our "day" pictures and then just hung out on the steps for an hour or so until it got dark. It was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. Kevin made some phone calls and then played his DS and I read my book. It was just nice to have a minute to just sit there, looking at the view across the Reflection Pool from the steps and just taking it all in.
Along our journey back to the hotel we realized we didn't really have dinner and it was getting late so Kevin talked me into McDonalds. We had to hurry out of there quick though cause we ran into some shady characters in there, specificially one drunk guy trying to carry on a conversation with Kevin in spanish. That is when I made the decision that we would not be out wandering the streets after 10pm again! (Mom & Dad - don't worry, we were really fine, and were only 2 blocks from the hotel...in hindsight we just should have gotten it to go). We got back to the hotel, Kevin got in yet another episode of SpongeBob and then we were out.
8/20/07 - Monday
Monday's activity of the day was the National Zoo. Our research had told us that it is a big and really cool zoo so we planned to start there and see how long it took us to get through. It is part of the Smithsonian and the exhibits are said to be as close to the animals actual habitat as possible. It is a couple Metro stops north of the city. And by the way, at the Metro stop was the longest/tallest escalator I have ever seen! We were on that thing forever! I tried taking a picture but it did not do it justice.
I won't give you a ton of commentary on the zoo. We did end up spending pretty much all day there. Some of the highlights are in the pictures below. One of the disappointments were the elephants, Kevin's favorite. They are in the process of building a huge new elephant exhibit so the elephants were MIA. The pandas were awesome, especially the little guy eating his bamboo. We have a video my camera of the tigers play fighting.
My other favorite part was encouraging Kevin (without his knowledge) to regulate some teenagers that were making out in the bird exhibit. After we walked past them, I told Kevin to yell "get a room." He did. This other mom near us says "yeah, really." Kevin thought I was telling him to yell it at the birds. It was awesome.
The last picture needs a little explanation. For those of you who do not watch the Disney channel, there is a cartoon on there, Kim Possible, where one of the main characters is a naked mole rat named Rufus. Well, it just so happened that we made it to the small mammal house at 2pm, just as they were doing the "meet a mammal" presentation. And what was the mammal of the day? A naked mole rat!!! Kevin got to hear all about them and get his picture taken with one. He was very excited.
Kevin and Rufus, the naked mole rat
We ended the trip with a stop in the gift shop. The time Kevin's snuggle friend of choice was a Panda which he decided to name Obi-Wan [a.k.a. Ben]. Again, what a weirdo. We stopped by Subway on the way back. Kevin fell in love with this Subway because they actually had ketchup. Why would you would want to put ketchup on your turkey sub? I don't know, but then again this kid puts ketchup on tacos. Hopefully this is a phase.
We went swimming again once we got back to the hotel. I must say, the hot tub soak felt really great. After all the zoo walking on top of the monument hike the night before, it was nice to just relax for a few minutes. We headed back up to the room to pack up and get ready for the trip back home.
8/21/07 - Tuesday
Our flight was leaving at 11am so we did not have time for any more adventures. We just got up and ready for the day and checked out. It was raining a little again so it really didn't make the luggage hauling too fun. But we made it to the airport and got checked in with a little less than an hour to spare. We got a smoothie and some Fruit Loops to snack on for breakfast. Kevin posed for a couple last pictures in the airport. We were sad to be leaving but Kevin was very excited to see Grandma, who was picking us up from the airport. We got on the plane, waved goodbye to DC, and headed back to reality.
We forgot to take a picture in the Detroit airport before we left, so we did it on arrival
That was it!! We survived! It was definately some of the most adventure packed days we have had to date but we loved every minute of it. I was very grateful to be able to spend some good quality time with Kevin. Not that I didn't know it before, but I really was able to witness some of the qualities in that kid that make him so special. When I told people about our trip, one of the common reactions was, "are you crazy? you are going to take a 7 yr old to DC by yourself?" But I wasn't worried. Kevin was great. I didn't have to worry about him at all. We saw a lot and we really had a lot of fun together. Kevin is already planning the next trip for all of the things we didn't get to see this time around. I can't wait!!!
