Our trip to DC

Get ready! This is a LONG post!

Mike and I spent President's Day weekend exploring Washington, DC. Visiting DC was on our list of things we'd like to do before leaving the East Coast and of all the things on our list we thought this would be the hardest to do with a little baby so we took care of it before the little guy joins us. We had a GREAT time. Even with it being so cold and all the snow on the ground we were able to do everything we wanted to do. This is our trip in a big nutshell:

Day 1 - 5 modes of transportation (subway, airplane, bus, train, and metro) got us from home to our hotel. We unpacked and were off on our first excursion.

 

Our first stop, the National Archives.

We saw the Declaration of Indepence, the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta and it was all housed in a beautiful room. A very good first stop for our trip.

 

Then we dropped by the Museum of Natural History. I really like this elephant and if you look really hard you can kind of tell that my belly is growing, hard to see in the black shirt, but more on that later.

 We liked so many exhibits in this museum but I think the dinosaur bones were our favorite.

I know how much Tammy like's diamonds so I picked her up an early birthday present, the Hope Diamond! 

 

I took this picture of Mike then we noticed the sign he was under and couldn't stop laughing.

After the museum, we ended Day 1 with night shots of the Washington Monument and the Capital Building. Mike could not get enough of the Washington Monument our entire trip. We have more pictures of that thing from so many different angles but we never went inside.

And that's the end of Day 1!

Day 2 - We did a lot during Day 2 in DC. I really wanted to see the zoo, even though we knew a lot of the animals wouldn't be out, so that's where we started.

Mike at the zoo entrance. He was a sweetheart and carried my heavy purse the whole time. I would try and take it but whenever he saw me holding it he would grab it from me. So this is a very accurate portrayal of what he looked like the whole trip.

At the zoo we saw two pandas, a ton of monkeys and other little animals in the "small mammal house," and some very big gorillas. Right now they are waiting to tell if this panda is pregnant, by how exhausted she looks I'm betting she is. And the gorilla was sitting in a hammock so that's as much as we could see of her until she got up and walked out the room with a little baby clinging to her belly, I never got to see it but Mike loved it.

After the zoo we headed over to the National Museum of the American Indian. I thought this place was great! I think our baby would look super cute in this carrier, although it doesn't look too comfy to wear.

Our next stop was at the National Botanical Garden. It was so nice to go to a place where there were green living plants and flowers blooming. It felt like the middle of spring!

It felt the complete opposite outside with all the cold, snow, and wind. Mike was a champ and let me take pictures of him in front of the Capital Building. Notice he is still carrying my purse :)

We popped inside the Air and Space Museum for a quick look and saw a real moon rock. I even got to touch it. We headed out quick though to get to the Museum of American History before it closed.

 

We saw Lincoln's Top Hat, Dorothy's red shoes, Fonzie's Leather Jacket, and Magnum PI's shirt.

By the time we got back to the hotel we were beat, but we stayed up to take advantage of having a TV and watched the the Olympics. It was a perfect end to Day two.

Day 3 - Valentines Day! We exchanged presents at home before we left so we wouldn't have to pack anything unnecessary but we still had a great valentines day. We visited all the memorials that we wanted to see.  It started off at the White House.

 Me in front of the white house. He'd only let me carry my purse when he was taking a picture.

Then we checked out the Viet Nam Memorial.

Here I am at the Lincoln Memorial. See how tight my winter coat is? It still fits comfortably, just snug.

Mike with FDR. FDR was a huge advocate for Physical Therapy. We walked through his memorial which highlights many of his quotes. It was my favorite memorial of the trip.

Mike took some great pictures at the Jefferson Memorial. 

We didn't get to see everything we wanted of the Air and Space museum the day before so we went back for another look. This is part of the Apollo ship brought the astronauts back to Earth from the moon. I'm still skeptical about it all, thanks to my 9th grade science teacher who spent a week teaching us how the moon landing was faked.Thank you Nordhoff.

By this time Mike estimated that we had walked about 5 miles which normally wouldn't wear me out one bit but I was having a tough time of it so we got this great picture of a a metal tree from the sculpture garden and headed back to the hotel for more Olympics. We went out that night for a nice Valentine's dinner and since I got a little dressed up Mike got a shot of my belly.

Here you go Nater! This is me at 23 weeks. Little baby boy has been kicking and moving like crazy. 

Mike was able to feel 3 big kicks in a row a couple weeks ago. He kicks a lot when there is loud music playing or when I eat a good amount of sugar. I hope that means he likes both!

We left DC on Day 4. It was a fantastic trip, one that will always be very special to me.

Preparing to land in Boston.