Imagine being magically whisked away…

To DC!! This past week, Dan whisked us off to DC for a little family vacation.
It was our first experiment with Grayson on an airplane and all in all, he did fine on the 1 hour, direct flight. However, Dan and I cringe at the thought of taking him on anything longer.
Even though he did well, drinking his bottle at wheels up and happily chomping on pear pieces on descent, poor kiddo does not want to sit still on my lap for great lengths of time.
Understandably so.
My greatest fear is to fly on a long flight, or many long flights, seated directly in front of (or in back of, or next to) someone who isn’t as patient with little ones who are struggling to get their ears acclimated, their boredom extinguished, and their freedom granted after an exhausting day of travel.

After our early flight in, we descended upon DC in expert sightseer fashion. In 4 days, we managed to stick to Grayson’s nap & feeding schedule, squeeze in a viewing of every major monument & memorial (except Iwo Jima, which we struggled to even find directions to), the Capital, Arlington, the Pentagon, the White House, the Natural History Museum, the Air & Space Museum and we even found time to hit the park for swings, some swim time at the pool, and a trip to the nearest shopping mall for souvenirs.

To give y’all an idea of our success, Dan decided to track our steps, inch by inch, mile by mile via GPS on his iPhone. In layman’s (or Laura’s) terms, we basically ended up walking over 10 miles a day. Sssshew! Now that’s some walkin’! At times I felt like Forrest, “We just felt like runnin’”.

And apparently no trip to DC would be complete without some sort of unnecessary and unsolicited politically charged commentary provided by Hanoi Jane’s wanna-be brother at the Vietnam Memorial. Bleeeck. I didn’t even see it coming. All I wanted to say was, “Dude, seriously not the appropriate time OR place…and if I want your opinion, I'll ask.”

Of course my favorite sight was the Lincoln Memorial. I love it! Something about being able to see him, sitting so dignified, from a half mile away. Yet, when you get within feet of him, he is absolutely HUGE and his features are so well carved. They did an amazing job on that one, in my opinion.

It really amazes me how much time all these sights take too. Before we knew it, the whole day was behind us and our plan to see more than we did that day had to be altered. Looking back, we did just fine. We saw what we wanted to see, and we were even lucky enough to catch things exactly at the right time; for example we walked up JUST as they were starting the changing of the guard at the Tomb of Unknown Soldier. We witnessed an amazing attendance at the “changing” as well: mixed in with Average Jane and Joe, there was a group of young JROTC kids in uniform and a group of retired WWII Vets. The song Taps always makes me teary, but add in the inclusion of a young JROTC member to place a wreath, as well as a Vet to place another wreath, the ambiance, gravity, and significance of the moment could bring Thor to his knees. It was amazing to see, and something I’ll never forget.

That same sentiment could be said about the whole trip. Even though we didn’t spend as much time as we’d like reading every placard in the museums and listening to every second of the monument’s tours, we enjoyed all the family time and all the amazing things to see. The trip definitely instilled a renewed sense of patriotism and reminded us where we started, how far we’ve come, and so many reasons why we’re lucky to be in this country.
And of course we took a ton of pictures. Too many, in fact, to post here…so make sure to click HERE and check out all of them.

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter!

Here's Grayson enjoying ice cubes, rattling around in a cup.

Seriously, why do we buy toys?

I think Grayson enjoyed DC, don't you?