A Day in D.C.

My one day in D.C. I did quite a bit. First, I enjoyed room service for breakfast :-) Oh, life is good. Then I headed over to the National Gallery of Art. I took a taxi over since I had no idea where I was going. Taxis are strange in D.C., there's no meter. It seems totally random as to what they charge you and the distance I went definitely wasn't worth the price. I later figured out they go by zones. Oh well. Anywho, the Nat'l Gallery was pretty confusing as in hard to navigate. Cool thing - it's free! So I spent some time and saw some cool art and some not so cool art and couldn't find some things I wanted to see.


This is me taking a pic of myself - pathetic...note my new hair (Mary had a slight panic attack to see that I had it chopped)

Then I walked over to one of the Smithsonians (I'm clueless and didn't know there was multiple ones until Mary clued me in) - Natural History. There were A LOT of kids there so for a minute I was sad not to have my C2 with me. Then I saw two little rugrats throwing tantrums and again felt relief to be kid free. The Hope Diamond is there and there was a cool butterfly exhibit. The Smithsonian is also free *sweet* but I paid to get into the butterfly exhibit. It was worth it, there was definitely lots of cool butterflies.


Me attempting to compare my diamond to the Hope Diamond ;-)


one of the many cool butterflies

Afterwards, I made my way back to the hotel stopping for lunch and at H&M. We drove by H&M on our way to the hotel when we were arriving and I mentioned I was going to shop the next day then I said, "though I guess they won't have maternity clothes". Well, they do! However, Mary told me not to shop so I controlled my urge. Hmph! :-\

I was pretty proud of myself since I don't know D.C. at all (the last time I was there, I was about 7 or 8) and managed to navigate pretty well on my own, only with a map from the Nat'l Gallery that showed the streets around it. Of course, it would've been nice if Mary was with me but it was still a nice alone day. In the evening, Mary and I walked over to the White House and then had a casual dinner.



Then we were off early in the morning. Luckily, on the flight back a very nice man agreed to switch seats with Mary so we could sit together. The flight was pretty quick and I wasn't as scared as I usually am but managed to get sick. Oh, lovely. Flying into Boston, we had a 4.5 hour drive home but we were happy to be greeted by a very excited C2 who my mom said had been looking out the window for the past 1/2 hour when I called to say we were almost there. And of course he was even more happy to see that I got him yet another stuffed animal to add to his collection. At this point, the boy can barely fit in his bed with the number of animals he shares it with. He's a funny little guy.

Since we've had the boys, any time we take a trip on our own, it's total chaos - picking up the dog, getting the boys, and returning a rental car. This time, C2 and the dog were already here and we have the rental car until Tuesday. Unfortunately, Mary had to leave early this morning to pick up C1. It sounds like the adoptive family was pretty overwhelmed with him and they decided it would be best not to take him to church this week (the mom is a minister). I just hope they aren't getting second thoughts after experiencing the realities of C1.