Matthew and Grace had decided they wanted to go to DC this weekend but instead of staying at a hotel there, Matthew made the economically savvy decision to see if we'd be home. Since Liam and Malia weren't home, I was happy to tag along with them and go places that I wouldn't be able to go with two children in tow. We went to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Matthew gave one of the statues his phone to take a selfie- I thought this was hilarious.
Then we walked to the Lincoln Memorial. It was a pretty long walk... but we made it.
As we were nearing the memorial we saw a lot of people posing for pictures and one pose that seemed common was tilting the head to one side. We decided to try it:
The Washington Monument was between the museums and the Lincoln Memorial... I snapped a picture on the way back. It was perfect weather for a walk around DC. I've really only walked around DC two other times- my first trip was in June of 2012 when I was very pregnant with Liam and the other was when I was pretty pregnant with Malia and also during the summer. So it was nice to walk carrying just my own weight and not to be sweating.
So funny story. Our plan was to go to the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. So that was our first stop. We walked and walked and walked and found out it hasn't opened yet. I watched a 60 Minutes piece on it and was so excited to go but if I had listened to the very beginning of it (which I always miss from fast-forwarding through commercials) I would have heard them say it opens in September. Oops. Here's the closed building we walked to but weren't able to enjoy from the inside.
We were excited to have Grandma and Pops come up to see us this weekend. Pops' birthday is tomorrow so Zachary had done some researching and planning a couple of weeks ago trying to create a special weekend to celebrate. The Cavaliers just happened to being playing in DC so Mo and Zachary coordinated and made sure they could definitely come and got tickets. I snapped a picture of him receiving his present!
So they headed off to DC- had dinner and then watched the game. Meanwhile, Malia has had an awful diaper rash for the past few days and the doctor recommended diaper free time. It sounds simple but it is quite a nightmare. I put down several towels and had to change them out about every 5 minutes. I had a lot of laundry throughout the duration of this rash. But she is just so cute.
After I determined we'd had enough of that, we got in some PJ's and kept Liam company while he ate his dinner. Malia fell asleep in her high chair.
I got some pictures from Zachary from the game too:
I don't remember Zachary leaving the hotel room because I had finally fallen asleep and was out when his alarm went off and as he got ready. I woke up with my alarm at 7:00, pumped and Mo and I got the kids ready and we headed off to see as much of the race as possible. We contemplated using the metro to ride around to minimize the walking but considering how crowded we thought the metro might be and considering the fact that we are two able bodied people, we decided to walk everywhere. We took a very nice, leisurely walk to where we could watch the runners go by the 11 mile mark. We were getting text messages keeping us updated on where Zachary was in the race and we were able to see him run by.
From there, we walked to the finish line. That doesn't sound like a lot of walking but boy, oh boy, when you're pushing a stroller as Mo was or "wearing" a baby, it's a bit of a trek- we definitely got our exercise in. Liam and Malia were the perfect little babies- Liam needed to get out of the stroller once to move his legs but he did really well and Malia was just as content as could be in the baby carrier. Because of the lack of sleep, Zachary did not do as well as he wanted to- it's amazing to me that he traveled 26.2 miles using only his body but at a certain point his body, as he put it, just gave up on him. He still finished it and did a remarkable job but he had trained really hard and had an expectation that he didn't meet. It was a quiet ride home. Spoiler alert: he would run another marathon in two weeks and he killed it!
