DC Fun

I'm doing this post out of order here, but here's a wrap-up of the past few days of DC fun. The JFK 50 report will be next!

Sunday morning, I was up early so after a quick shower, Emily and I hobbled slowly downstairs, laughing at all of us runners in the breakfast area who were easy to pick out as they walked around 😂 Emily took off to the airport while Ryan, Sam, Mom and Dad piled into the car and headed towards DC for part #2 of our vacation adventure!

Stop #1 was the Smithsonian National Zoo. This is a really cool piece of property and amazingly, free to the public. What an incredible gift! Of course, we had to pay for parking, but if you lived in the area or could take the Metro in, seriously free, which is pretty cool. So much to see!

Golden Lion Tamarin

Fennec Fox (Look at those ears!!)

Sand Kitty!!

ROAR!

Roseate spoonbill

💗💗💗

Cuban crocodile

Newt!

This male tiger was roaring crazily while we walked past his enclosure, kinda sounded like Ronnie  yowling 😜🐅

Follow the elephant footprints!

Meerkating 😆😊

We walked the whole perimater pathway, hitting most of the exhibits along the way, with a stop for lunch halfway through. I will admit to my legs being fairly sore/stiff and feeling overall tired, but the walking definitely did help to loosen things up! Although I probably didn't need to walk around for four hours like we did 😝😜😆

Finally around 2:00 pm, we headed into the city to Corie and Rob's. It has been forever since we have seen them both, and Sam and their three girls have never met, so it was wonderful to spend time with them! All of Corie's family, minus her brother Rob, were in town, so there were 12 adults and 8 kids in the house in the house, which made for a very festive, fun evening! Sam and Ruby, who is only 6 months older, hit it off right away and Sam fit right in with the whole crowd. It was such fun to see 😊 Rob cooked up some delicious lasagna and the girls baked and frosted a cake. Yum!

After the everyone had left and the girls had gone to bed, Corie, Rob, Ryan and I sat around chatting for a while before I had to head to bed. There was much laughter and it was so good to catch up with them! We are so lucky to have such great friends, and we really need to see them more often! Cheers to a fun night and we will do it again soon! Thanks Corie and Rob 💖

Monday morning, the Summers clan had to head into work and school, but not before Rob made Ryan and I his famous huevos rancheros (delish!) and yummy coffee. We tried to stay out of their way while they got themselves out the door and then did our best to clean up the kitchen and get ourselves out the door for tourist destination #2!

It was a beautiful morning and we took the metro down to the Mall to take in the sights and enjoy the Museum of Natural History.

First Metro ride

There was so much to see in the museum but we tried to hit the highlights! Sam liked the Oceans exhibit and the Gems & Minerals the best, while I thought the Nature's Best Photography Exhibit was spectacular!

Entering the Oceans Hall

Mammals exploration

Nature's Best Photography exhibit

Gems & Minerals - really spectacular!

 It was really fun to see Sam so interested in all that was on display for hours on end. Keep on asking questions, kiddo! 💜

Legs felt much better on Monday morning and walking around the museum wasn't quite as taxing as walking around the zoo. It was another four hours of walking morning but I was encouraged to have things feeling fairly decent, and knew that the walking would be good in the face of the 6 hour drive down to NC! Thankfully, we only hit a bit of traffic coming out of the city, and after one bathroom stop and a dinner stop at Noodles & Company (yum!), we arrived at Mom and Dad's around 9:00 pm, took quick showers and headed right to bed! Onto part #3 of our vacation adventure 😃😄