At the beginning of November, we went down to National Harbor (right outside of Washington DC) for a mini vacation over NJ Teacher's Convention. It was fun to be able to go on a little trip and the 3 hour car ride is just barely a bit more than Lorelei can handle (since she hates riding in the car so much.)
But once we got there we had a ton of fun! We did a lot of DC things that were different from what you'd typically do when you go to DC for the weekend.
I think these two love each other juuuuust a little bit :)
Here's the story behind this side-by-side...it's pretty funny. Jimmie has been obsessed with Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood for a while. If you don't already know, it's a continuation of Mr. Rogers...so there is a trolley in it. He LOVES trolley so we thought it'd be fun to go across the river to Alexandria and take a ride on the free King Street Trolley that they have running all day.
Unfortunately, we had to take a bus to get over there and found out that Jimmie is TERRIFIED of the airbrakes on busses. You know...the loud compression sound it makes when it stops? So the hysteric meltdowns started then. Once we got him calmed down, he continued to be upset by all of the busses on the roads and...the trolley was no different. It was a "trolley" but didn't run on tracks. It had the airbrakes.
We had intended for it to just be a little part of our day but then ended up needing to walk the length of King Street instead of riding like we'd planned since Jimmie was too scared to get on. It was fun to be able to explore and just enjoy a nice day out for a walk to the water front.
Here are some stops we made along the way:
My sweet girl
We did eventually make it onto the trolley for a bit after a full day of walking. Jimmie was initially okay with it. As you can see from his face, he was not okay with it for the entire time and definitely was not okay with me not holding him.
Made it to the waterfront!
Me and my favorite boy.
Tossing coins in the fountain
Later that night, we walked just a block or so down the street from our hotel to "National Harbor" to see the few sites and attractions down there.
It was a beautiful time to ride the Capital Wheel and look out over National Harbor at sunset!
One thing they have down at the Harbor is a giant piece of art that is essentially different parts of a giant man, buried in the sand. It was really pretty neat to realize that the overview allows for the pieces to come together to make one piece.
Evan pretending to be eaten by the head of the statue.
The next day we had the chance to go to the Smithsonian Zoo in DC. Somehow, in all of the trips to DC, we've never gone to the free zoo! And they have Pandas!! It's a great zoo with lots of great things for the kids and adults to see. It took us several hours to get through with the kids and was definitely tiring, but so much fun.
Teenage Panda
We got to the elephants JUST as the trainers came out to have them put on a show! They could do some pretty amazing things! We were all in awe.
Lorelei loved being worn in her Tula, but sometimes she had a whole lot to say!
There are also whole sections of the zoo that have poles and ropes connecting them that allow for the orangutangs to climb and move freely between their different houses. As we were eating our lunch, directly above us, the monkeys decided it was time to move! We had great seats for the show :)
Jimmie was amazed at this little alcove where you could watch the sea lions playing in the water. And we were grateful for some cool shade and a bench to relax while the sea lions did the entertaining :)
Before we went home the next day, Mom and I were able to go to the Washington D.C. temple and join several other people from our stake in our stake temple day. It was a wonderful thing.
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