Washington trip, part 2

Didn't mean for the second part of this post to be so delayed!  Below are a few more pictures from our Washington trip in March.  Our home base for the week was the apartment in Cleveland Park, but we covered a lot of the metro area (and beyond).  At the beginning of the week we drove to up past Hagerstown for Noni's birthday.  Lots of extended family were there and it was the boys' first time at one of those big Ecuadorian parties that are so much fun (with so much good food) for everyone.

Trying out some of the yummy food.

When Nachi broke out the accordion, Malcolm said "This is weird, Mom."  But he later told me the music and dancing were his favorite part of the party :)

Another trip was to the zoo, naturally.  It was a very pleasant day to walk around since most of the snow had melted and it was nice and sunny.  Joseph and Michael liked the panda, and we all liked seeing the monkeys and playing at some of the exhibits.

One thing we took advantage of was the free museums!  We did a Capitol tour one morning - a first for me and Mike, even though I worked across the street from the Capitol for several years and Mike used to work downtown too.  It was legitimately new, though, since the Visitor Center opened right after we moved.  This was fun but not quite as engaging as the other museums for the kids - and I was worried about the parking meter expiring so we had to cut the trip a bit short.  Speaking of parking, though, it wasn't nearly as much of a problem as I'd feared during the week.  Amazingly (since I wouldn't usually expect the local government to make something actually easy for people), DC lets you use a parking app to pay the meters, so you don't have to worry about finding $4 in change every time you park.  We downloaded the app, paid online, and used the app each time we were driving downtown.  It wasn't too hard to find spaces off the Mall with just a little circling, too.  That certainly helped ease some of the stress of traveling with small children...

Thanks to Senator Cruz's office

Cool skeletons at the Museum of Natural History

A little blurry, but more cool fossils

Giant elephant

Our favorite was the Air and Space Museum.  This time we got to visit the main museum on the Mall, and also the satellite museum campus (Udvar-Hazy) in Reston, by Dulles Airport.  It was our first time at that museum, and it was so cool.  I don't if the boys could fully appreciate it (although they did like the space shuttle and seeing so many planes), but Mike and I really loved it.  I had a huge grin on my face seeing the SR-71 Blackbird -- seriously, I don't know why it was so amazing, but it really was.  So were the Tomcat, the Concorde, and the space shuttle.  Go America.

Cool exhibits on flight

Malcolm would be a heavy kid on Jupiter

Apollo lunar module

Picture of the moon

Joseph is done for the morning

Blackbird.  Amazing.

Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.

Mike and the boys in front of Discovery

Mom and the boys

Along with all our sight-seeing, our family enjoyed getting to spend lots of time with Grandma and Noni, go to Mass at the National Shrine, and visit some old friends and cousins on both sides of Mike's family. I also got to have lunch with one new friend from National Review.  It was funny taking the Metro down for a lunch on Capitol Hill - felt like something from another lifetime because my working life here is quite a bit different :)

Lunch with Grandma and Noni at Cactus Cantina = the best!

We are very thankful to have had such a wonderful trip and can't wait to go back someday!