The District

Living in The Hub of the Americas®, close to so many exotic locales, where would we choose to go for our first sizable vacation of the school year?  Back to our own country, oddly, but nowhere near home.

Since Sarah was going to a conference in North Carolina, we decided that it made sense to head up to DC before Sarah popped down the street to The Carolinas.  Fall weather was another big draw, although we had to head to Target to get coats for all of our kids.  For real!

Sarah set up an awesome, historic Airbnb in the Capitol Hill neighborhood a mere ten minute walk to the capitol.  

We had the basement flat under the stairs. It reminded us of our first place together in San Francisco right after we got married.

Our first day out we drove to the 'burbs where Mr. Washington owned a bit of land.  

It was also an opportunity for us to meet up with our old friends Sam and Megan, and their kiddo who is a little younger than ours.

The Big O is a bit dubious of the disrespect shown by his older brother. But the local loves it!

Being on...

...or in a tree. Either will do.

Shake Shack in Union Station to top it all off.

Make that a double.

Did I mention that we successfully convinced two of our favorite coworkers, Eduardo & Luis Carlos, to explore The District with us?  Whelp, we did.  We didn't have quite as much excitement as they did (no trapeze lessons or day trips to NYC for us this time), but it was so much fun seeing the sights with them.

What's that in the background? Some museum or something.

Do you think The Little Lady or Eduardo makes a more convincing president? (I mean compared to each other, not the actual president. We all know the answer to that.)

Next we took advantage of the ol' DC bikeshare to interact with some monuments!

Muchas gracias for the excellent selfies, guys. I really botched getting photos of all of us...

(A behind the scenes shot.)

In all we saw eight museums (some more than others, and that's counting a sculpture garden as one, which is actually cheating), the National Archives, the Capitol, the Supreme Court (we saw a 15 minute session with all the justices!), the biggest library in the world, and quite a lot of each other.

We had to walk by this impressive building to get most places.

"I just don't buy your argument, dad, regardless of what this 18th century political cartoon seems to suggest."

What is everyone (except Sarah) looking at?

This. [Note from Sarah: I was too busy thinking of how much I enjoy the word "apotheosis."]

We learned that the famous "EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW" was put there because it fit the space. Funny, eh?

The guy that looks like Greg Wingren is not amused.

They needed to conserve warmth.

We are certainly thankful that we're lucky and blessed enough to be able to have this kind of adventure.  Perhaps the children will be inspired by this visit to someday serve their country and invent an actual two-person jacket.