Highlights from today: (click here for pictures)
Anderson stood right up in the middle of the night and asked Robby to fix his covers-at least I thought it was the middle of the night but it was already 7:30. We need to buy whatever type of window shades were in that hotel room since it was pretty dark in there. Reagan and Anderson slept under the desks last night and Robby even used a sheet to make them a tent. They were thrilled. This has been a pretty busy trip and they are pretty tired. At home, we have to tuck them in and then go upstairs for a zillion different reasons. But the past few nights, we say it is bedtime and they get their things and then crawl right into bed and the next thing we know is that they are asleep.
Anyway, we were up and around and even had a few minutes to have breakfast in the room since we only had a few things on the agenda for today (we never seem to have to much to do on the last day of a trip-not really the case today though). Last night we brought in all of our food in the hotel room (we usually didn’t) and we noticed that we had lots and lots of food to eat before tomorrow. Robby gave them their breakfast options which they were pretty pleased about and they decided on brownies and cookies for breakfast-hey it’s vacation!
The rain was pretty steady on our way to Baltimore. Not a hard rain just a steady, cold messy rain. We had Robby’s computer out so we could check into our flight at exactly 24 hours in advance. He wondered if there was an IKEA in Baltimore so I looked it up. He then said maybe we should go there for a little bit so maybe the rain would slow up. I found the address and put it in the gps and it said that we were 1 mile away and needed to exit NOW. Of course, we were in the far, far right lane so we had to take the next exit but we were soon there.
I just love IKEA. It is my favorite place and I would have loved it more if I had room to buy more (room in my suitcase and room in my house!). They had a children’s play area and Anderson really wanted to go and Reagan wasn’t too sure. It is for the kids to play while the parents shop. Anderson put his arm around Reagan trying to convince her to go and said “it’s okay, I will go with you.” We didn’t care if they went or not since Graham would still be with us. But they decided to go on in. Graham couldn’t go since he isn’t potty trained so Robby dropped them off while I took Graham to the toy area to browse. He found a slide and was so proud of himself (and later he wanted to show Reagan and Anderson the slide he found).
We shopped and shopped-I bought a few things for Campbell’s birthday. Now I just have to get on making her that kitchen (does anyone have a nightstand they don’t want?). Graham enjoyed not having to compete for attention-we even let him push the shopping cart. After we finished the first floor, Robby went downstairs to pick up Reagan and Anderson. They said that they weren’t ready to leave so we headed downstairs. After finishing there, he picked them up and they were so excited. They had watched a movie, colored, climbed on rocks and played in the ball pit.
After we loaded up, we still had one last day of picnicking to do. We enjoy having picnics on our trips but it seems like the weather usually isn’t always that great. It did work out quite a bit at the beginning of the trip but not so much the last few days. Anyway, we had our picnic in the car as we drove.
The rain hadn’t really let up but it was time to head to Fort McHenry. There was construction near the visitor center so we had to park about a 1/4 mile away….did I mention that it was raining! We put the kids in the buggies, put on our coats, balanced the umbrella’s over the kids and Robby and I pushed the buggies as we jogged toward the visitor center. The kids stayed dry but I can’t say that about us. We looked around and then watched the movie. We have been here before and seen the same movie-it tells the story of the battle, Francis Scott Key and the National Anthem. At the end, the curtains open up and you hear the National Anthem playing. The kids stayed pretty interested-there was a battle on the screen with guns, cannons, fire and smoke! Hopefully, they kind of got the connection that that was the same flag they had already seen on this trip in DC at the Smithsonian.
The rain had lightened up a little bit so Robby took the big kids to go and look at the fort. Campbell and I stayed in the dry building. He said that they really enjoyed the fort-rooms to climb around in. I became tired of walking around the tiny gift shop so I looked out and the rain had stopped so Campbell and I headed out to the fort too. By the time I met Robby, the rain had started again only harder. So we all had to run back inside and then regroup and run back to the car. We were pretty damp by the time we made it to the car.
Next, we drove through Baltimore. Robby and the big kids stopped at Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles to take a few pictures and then we drove down by the waterfront on our way for Charm City Cakes. I sometimes watch the show Ace of Cakes so we thought we would stop by and say hello. Actually, we just jumped out of the car and posed for a picture and then jumped back in the car.
Next we were headed back to DC. Robby told the kids “look we are in DC” and Anderson looked up, looked around and then said “what are we doing back here?” Though I kind of think that he thinks we have been driving all of this way to get to another airport so we can go home. And we were there before 4, since it was a little too early to eat supper we went to the Jefferson Memorial. We found great street parking and had to put on our coats, hats and gloves for this trip. It was pretty cold and windy in DC today. I am actually glad we needed them since I had packed them and didn’t want to have wasted that space on something we didn’t need. Crazy though, we have been swimming at the beach and now are wearing hats and gloves.
We posed for pictures at Jefferson and then headed back down the path to the Roosevelt Memorial. The kids enjoyed looking at the water and seeing all of the different statues. Of course, Reagan’s favorite was of Roosevelt’s dog. She called it Rose-a-belle. We made it back to the car before we froze and headed towards supper.
We at supper at Ray’s Hell Burger. Yes, we saw it on the news when Obama went there, same thing with the hot dog place we went to last Sunday. It was crowded and we were pretty rushed when ordering so we just ended up with some pretty plain old burgers but they sure were good. Anderson almost finished off his piece of burger and Graham ate quite a bit too. Reagan said she didn’t like meat on her burger-she is pretty picky these days (I don’t know where she gets that since Robby and I have never been picky and still aren’t today!-ha!)
As we were about the pull out the restaurant on our way to the hotel, I mentioned that we hadn’t seen the monuments at night. So before I knew it, Robby had turned the car around and we were headed back into town. The kids were happy with their movie so we were able to ride around for quite some time. We saw all the big ones-Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Capitol, White House. When we pointed out the monuments to the kids, they were pretty impressed with them being lit up and Reagan wanted to know who was doing that-she probably thinks that Obama was out there shining a flashlight on them. We drove by the Smithsonians, Treasury, lots of Embassies, tried to see the VPs house and even saw the National Cathedral. When we were stopped there, Robby and I jumped out for a picture and Anderson looked out of the window and said “is THIS our hotel?” He briefly thought we were going to stay in a castle.
Next, we had a 30 minute drive to our hotel. We had thought we would check in earlier and have lots of time to repack but we were again checking in late. Oh, well we managed to get everything done. It is large chore, packing up a family of 6 back into 3 suitcases after being gone for 10 days. We got pretty spread out in the van-I told Robby that it would be easier to drive home than to repack everything. Robby put Graham in bed and Reagan and Anderson watched a movie. Campbell laid on the bed and and unrolled a roll of paper towels to occupy her time. We were almost down when Anderson started crying that he couldn’t see. He had somehow gotten chocolate crumbs into his eyes from his ding dong. How in the world could that happen? Anyway, he was so tired that it took a while to calm him down but he finally was calm and able to finish the movie.
Everyone is tucked into bed and probably all dreaming about getting home and playing with all of their toys and sleeping in their own beds (I sure am!)
No comments:
Post a Comment