Just got back from a week in DC with the family. It was a very nice quasi-vacation. We stayed at the company condo (a bit cramped but great location and the girls loved it). We did quite a lot. We spent Saturday at the Air and Space museum downtown — they were having a kite special event, so the girls got to make and color their own kites, and watch kite dancing events, and all kinds of stuff in addition to the usual neat stuff at that museum. Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera, so no pics of that visit.
Lots of pics of the next few days, tho. We had a nice breakfast with Lunn’s parents and some of his cousins. The girls got to meet Rose, their 18 mos. old new little cousin, and her mom Becky and her husband. Another one of Lunn’s cousins, Niles and his wife, were able to join us as well. It was a very nice visit. After that, and after a detour to the playground to let the girls burn off all the energy from behaving well at the restaurant, we went over to my friend Lynch’s house for a nice bar-b-que and visit with him, his wife and two boys, and of course their dog. The girls very much enjoyed playing with all the boys’ toys, and even condescended to play with the boys themselves from time to time.
The next day we went to the Reston Zoo, which we’d been told was a good petting zoo. It actually turned into one of those "good but totally not in the way you intended" kind of trips. The place itself was overpriced and an absolute tourist trap. The girls learned some interesting lessons, tho — like how to project physical dominance to scare off the omnipresent ducks, swans and geese chasing them looking for food. But Jenya got to pet a bunny (actually several bunnies), which made her week — and they all got pony rides, which they enjoyed.
We capped off the tourist-y portion of the trip with an afternoon at Mt. Vernon. The twins were really too young to appreciate it, and mostly just ran, played, and got bored, but Jenya seemed quite interested in the history. The best part was the girls’ visit with "Martha Washington" — they had an actress in full historic garb recreating Mrs. Washington, and she had a very interesting in-character conversation with the girls — told them all about life as a little girl in colonial America. Afterwards Jenya said "wow, she must be 170 years old."
I put an album with some of the pics from the trip up on the albums link.