Day 4 & 5: Washington D&C Monuments/Memorials & Going Home

When we were done with the caverns we had lunch. Funny story from lunch: We were at Subway and I had gotten Penny some McDonald's and brought it there. She wasn't eating her nuggets and said she wanted chips. I said "you need to eat your nuggets." She asked "And then chips?" Most of the chips were gone so I told her that. She then looked over at all the chips at the counter and Vanna White style said, "Ta da!"

After lunch we split ways.Chris took our girls and their 2 youngest and headed back to their house. Jenny C and Saylie hopped into our car and we went back to DC. From the caverns it was a 2 hour drive to DC so we got their mid afternoon. Our first walk was to the Jefferson Monument. Jenny C said this one was her favorite and after doing them all, I agree. It was not super crowded and had an air of peace and respect around it. I also loved many of the quotes engraved around the room.

Our next Memorial was the Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial. This one consisted of more good quotes, with pools of water everywhere, and a statue of FDR and another statue of his wife, Eleanor. 

It was pretty funny when Tyler took his backpack off and we realized his sweat had made a smiley face on his back.

After cooling off in an air conditioned gift shop we walked through the Martin Luther King Memorial. You'll notice Tyler in a lot of these photos. He decided to become quite the documenter on our last trip into DC so I took a break and documented a little less. 

The next Memorial we walked through was the Korean War Memorial. This was the first one to really hit me emotionally. I love our country but I think it's easy to forget sometimes about how many people from our country have sacrificed their lives for our freedom and the freedom of others. This was the first one to bring it into focus. The kids struggled with being respectful and reverent at this one but we sure tried to get them to understand.

We saw the Lincoln Memorial next. It is huge and amazing but at the same time it was not my favorite. It was super crowded, and not well ventilated. Not really a good place to stay and hang and contemplate.

After this one we got some ice cream and then headed to the Vietnam Memorial. Even more humbling and emotional. Way too many names of people who lost their lives in that war. We really talked to the kids about the recentness of this war and the importance of being respectful and this time they did a really good job. Steven walked through reading names as he went- it was really touching.

Our last Memorial was the World War 2 Memorial. I wasn't super impressed with the design of this one. It had pillars for each of the states and then some for other places involved in the war laid out in a circle with a fountain in the middle. The pillars were arranged by the importance of each state- that sort of rubbed me the wrong way. However, the Freedom Wall was really humbling- each star represented 100 lives lost and there were 4000 stars. 4000 people who were brothers, fathers, loved. We are so blessed for their sacrifice.

After that Memorial we really had to book it back to our car because we were parked somewhere that had a 3 hour limit. I am amazed it that we made it their right on time considering how exhausted and hot the kids were. Just as we were leaving we saw a police car pull into the lot so thank heavens we got there on time or we might have been towed!

We stopped for Chick-Fil-A on the way home which was a must with it being so close. When we got back Lucy was still awake, apparently she was really missing me. Also when we got back Steven discovered that his solar system poster that he had gotten from the Air and Space Museum had been played with by Lucy and was wrinkled and ripped on the edges. He was not happy with Lucy and she felt really bad and started crying. It was a fun night but when we at last got them to bed we got to go spend some time with Jenny C and Chris. We ended up watching "Black Panther" with them and they both passed out pretty fast (they had seen it before). Chris started breathing pretty loud and then woke up with a snort saying, "Was I snoring!?" It was pretty hard not to giggle. About 20 minutes from the end I decided I could figure out the rest and went to bed too. 

Saturday July, 7 was Tyler's birthday. The Chappell's got us doughnuts and even lit one up for Tyler when Lucy spilled the beans that it was his birthday.

Poor Tyler had to spend his birthday driving back to Michigan but luckily it went pretty smoothly again- minus the 40 minute wait at Burger King. It was the last Service Plaza for 80 miles and all 3 places there literally had 1 worker and 1 cook and it was lunchtime. At least we weren't in a rush. This time we didn't even have a DVD player for the drive because that had decided to break too but like  the kids still did good and Tyler was more happy because I helped with the driving again.

On our way home we bought some cereal for dinner per Tyler's request and some Ding Dongs for his makeshift birthday cake. It was such an exciting celebration ;) His birthday gifts consisted of a new mattress (that I had already bought him and don't really love), some money from my parents and Harry Potter Legos from his parents.