Day 2

 If I were to go back to D.C., I would know exactly how to do it with the kids.  Since it was my first time there as an adult, I did things the only way I knew how.  It was the wrong way.

We parked at Potomac Park and walked to what I thought was the Lincoln Memorial.  It was a fun little walk along the river, with squirrels and water puddles to jump over, or in.  It was all quite lovely. 

Then, we climbed the stairs (thinking "where are the crowds?") to find Thomas Jefferson.  It was really cool...just not the Honest Abe we had expected.

 The quotes along the wall were great discussion topics because they all mentioned God and religious freedom.  Mike talked to the older kids about it and they read the quotes.

Meanwhile, I took pictures and tried to keep Jason in my sites.  He told me he needed to pee and I told him we'd find a bathroom.  Then, I saw the lighting on these cool columns and I was distracted.

 I also saw this beautiful cardinal.

 As I was taking pictures, a worried Nate asked me where Jason went.  I looked all around and couldn't find him either.  So, I looked further away....

He was mid pee.  I couldn't do anything about it at that point, so I took a picture for posterity, and then walked away to pretend he wasn't mine.  There have to be dozens of video cameras that caught that...only one of my boys would pee off a National Monument...

 It was a pretty cool monument, with a pretty view over the river to the George Washington Monument.

 After talking to a nice security guard (who didn't arrest us for allowing our child to pee off a monument), we decided to walk around the loop to some other monuments.

 FDR brought the country through the Great Depression and WWII, so it's a pretty big memorial.
We loved the water features.  However, this is when Jason started to tire out.

Allie was Eleanor Roosevelt in the history fair last year in school, so she was excited to see her statue.

 We talked of Charlie a whole lot on this part of the trip.  The squirrels reminded us of him, and everyone loved this dog statue.

By the time we finished this memorial, we discovered that we were a long way away from the Lincoln memorial, but we were also better off to walk there, than to get our car.  So, we kept walking.  Like I said, Jason was done.  Mike and I were getting increasingly annoyed with all the kids, but especially the one who was going to stop walking "right now".  So, when a biker zoomed by us and was angry at us for taking up too much sidewalk, Mike said "chill out dude!" to him.  The guy stopped his bike and came back at us for a fight.  I saw it going down and said "I'm sorry if you thought he was talking to you.  He was talking to our son who is having a melt down."  Luckily, he believed me (after seeing the kid laying in a puddle at my feet) and went back to his bike with some choice words.  Once again, I'm glad we didn't end up at a police station answering questions.  

We half carried Jason to, and up the steps of the Lincoln memorial and he wouldn't go another step up to go in and see it.  I was hot and tired, so Mike stayed out with him and the rest of us went in for pictures.

 Once again, Allie posed by the Gettysburg address.  That Great American award was sure hard to earn, but it's fun to see things like this and be glad she did it.

 Jason was still done with walking, so Allie, Jake, and I went to get the car.  In a dumb mistake, I left the camera with them, so as we speed walked by the Korean War Memorial and the WWI and WWII Memorials, I just had Jake's camera.

 Mistake number two (after the first one of making the kids walk so much to obscure memorials when we could just drive to the big ones) was not bringing enough food.  I had snack foods like jerky and granola bars, but there weren't places to eat (unless we wanted a 7 dollar hot dog), so I wish we had more food.  And more food that Jason liked.  Alas, we went to the Air and Space museum with tired feet and still somewhat empty bellies.
It was still really cool.

 Jake loved it.  He read all the signs and was sad when we had to move on.
We got a picture in front of a Japanese Zero.  I remember being at an air show at Hill AFB with my grandpa and he was mad when he saw one of those at the show.  He spent years of his life fighting them and the country they came from...I could understand being angry to see one on display.

We also got a picture of Allie in front of a Dauntless Dive Bomber.  Grandpa Amos Kay Belnap flew this plane.  We tried to get a picture of Jason Kay in front of it, but like I said, he was done.

It's amazing to see the full sized planes all over in the museum.

We left the air and space museum because we thought we might have a few more minutes out of Jason and wanted to get to the Natural History Museum. I knew it had a giant elephant on the main floor, and I thought seeing that might snap him out of his bad mood.

Mike went to get the car, and we waited in the rain to get in the building.  Jason just got more and more upset.  We were surrounded by some Asian tourists and they were all staring at Jason's fit as he kicked and yelled that he wanted to go home.  I tried to explain (in my "we are in public so I have to pretend I'm a loving and patient mom" voice) that Dad went to get the car and that we had at least 15 minutes before we could go anywhere, so we might as well be in the museum.  There was no snapping him out of it.  We had a sympathetic security guard who let me carry him (kicking and screaming) through the metal detector and then we tried to make our way around the crowds without causing too much of a scene.  None of the other kids could even enjoy themselves because they were worried about Jason.  I was upset that Jason was so sad, but I also understood the fit.  He was tired and hungry and he doesn't love being away from home and he gets nervous in crowds.  It was just a rough situation.  We finally came to an agreement that he'd give it 15 minutes and we went off to have a really enjoyable time.  All the kids loved seeing the gem and jewel exhibit.

Allie loved all the elephants.

We met up with Mike and had a quick snack in the car.  After some food and a  little rest, they were ready to go to another museum.  We chose the American History Museum.

The boys loved the Batmobile.

They also liked reading a speech from the Presidential podium and seeing themselves on TV. 

Allie loved the First Ladies' wing where there were inaugural ball dresses and dishes from the White-house.  We had a good time looking around at things, and then we went to the car.  Mike and I left the kiddos there and rushed into the Natural History Museum really fast.  He hadn't been in there before and I wanted him to see some of the gems.  The place was closing in 10 minutes, so we had to rush, but it was nice to have a minute to ourselves.  We complained about how much different this trip was from last year when it was just the two of us, and then we decided to buck up and have a good time.  We needed to expect that things were going to be harder with kids and just roll with it a little better.  We went to bed that night ready to have a better day in the morning.