The National Mall

We made it to DC.  Barely!  Not literally, but between 38 degrees, no A/C and Max puking in the van on the way...I wasn't sure how this day was going to turn out.  Fortunately I had tossed Max a garbage bag just moments before he puked...so there was very little clean-up.  And he instantly fell asleep afterwards, so the rest of the trip was pretty quiet.

We headed straight to our hotel, checked in, and while Logan had a nap, the kids and I had a dip in the pool.  Lucy made some bad choices and ended up not being allowed in the pool, but she hung around pool-side and took pictures.

Logan and Tyler joined us when Logan woke up.

Once we were sufficiently cooled off, we went and got changed, grabbed some dinner and decided to head downtown to check out the National Mall and scout out where we would be going the next day.

I almost regretted this choice as we became very familiar and not very friendly with DC traffic.  Seriously it's crazy down there!  It basically looks like a bowl of spaghetti and you're supposed to know what road to take.  Good luck!  We got lost a number of times, but finally made it.  Most of the museums were already closed, but we took the opportunity to walk around a bit and check them out.

Here's our first glimpse of the Capitol Building from the spaghetti traffic.  We could see it, but just couldn't get to it!

The Museum of Natural History.

The Smithsonian Castle.

And then we decided to go and see the Washington Monument.

It was now 7:30pm and still 38 degrees outside.  Crazy muggy.

The monument is huge.  Like, indescribable.  Look at how tiny my children are compared to this huge monument!

We got a glimpse of the White House, but didn't venture there.

Then we crossed the street to the WWII memorial and checked that out for a while.  It was cooler by the water, so it was a nice place to be.  Although very difficult to keep 3 children from wading in some beautiful water.

Seriously, this place is enormous.  We decided to make the 1-mile trek to go and see the Lincoln Memorial, because we assumed it would be better to do in the evening, rather than the heat of the day tomorrow.  The reflecting pool was under construction, which was a disappointment, but we did see fireflies in the grass beside us.

It looked like the grass was catching light from the crazy heat.

Lincoln!  We finally made it!  The kids were so exhausted and took turns in the stroller.  Most of the time, one of the bigger kids would sit in the stroller with Logan on their lap, and Tyler would give a shoulder ride to the other.

The memorial was crazy busy, but we managed to get a few pictures.  Logan didn't want to take his eyes off that big guy.

Then the kids slid down the memorial on the way back down.

We filled up our water bottles at a water fountain and then made the 1-mile trek back to our van.  Logan literally ran the whole way.  The path is a common place for people to run and he would try to race every person that went by.  They got a pretty good kick out of him.

His face was red and puffy when we got back to the van.  Hopefully that equates to a good night's sleep!