Day 1: Mommy and Me in DC

Where do you go when you have a plane voucher to use by the end of the year, you refuse to fly by yourself because of airport anxiety, and your daughter has been asking to visit the Capitol for a year?  You take a mommy and me trip to DC!  
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5

I booked our flights to maximize our time to explore the area.  Which meant we were waiting for the hotel shuttle at 4:30 Thursday morning.  The boys in the family drove us to the airport hotel and went on their own all day adventure at the Children's Museum before going home.  We had an empty aircraft on our first flight which was only 55 minutes,  not even long enough for Lydia to drink 5 sips of her on-board hot chocolate.  Morning hot chocolate was a habit she picked up on our family cruise in the spring.  We found donuts on our layover at the airport and settled in to the comfy chairs to wait for our second flight of the morning.  It was only 6:30 am  local time.  Then we were off on another not full flight to our final destination, Reagan National Airport in Washington DC!

Thanks to a co-worker of Bob we arrived equipped with SmarTrip cards to ride the Metro all week.  Getting around on the Metro was one reason I picked DC,  we could get around without having to have the added expense and hassle of renting our own car.  So our first adventure was to find the Metro station at the airport and ride to our hotel.  Early check-in was availible since it was a down time.

We settled in to our home for the next 5 days, picked up some smoothies for the next Metro ride and headed to the Capitol!  Today's goal was to see the White House and National Christmas Tree.  On the train ride we met a young girl about 4 who was dressed up for a Christmas party.  Her and her mom were heading to the Judge's Tree Trimming Party and she looked the part in her pretty dress.

Lydia and our State's Tree

While we didn't get lucky with tickets to tour the White House, we visited the Visitor Center and learned about the history and heritage of the Peoples House.  Lydia earned her fist Junior Ranger badge of the trip for President's Park. We walked to the National Mall at Dusk and saw the National Christmas Tree surrounded by smaller trees for each of our nation's states and territories.  We discovered that our state tree was decorated by a Girl Scout Troop from our area, exciting to us as Lydia became a Brownie Scout just last month!  We admired all the trees and took notice of those that came from the states where our family lives.  Some were decorated by children and schools and others by individual artists.  Lydia said to me as we looked at the White House in front of us and the Washington Monument behind us, "I can't believe I'm really here!"

After a sleepy ride home on the Metro after our exciting day, we ate dinner in our room from the hotel bar as we watched a movie on TV in our jammies.  Anyone remember "The Shaggy Dog" with Tim Allen?  Gotta get enough sleep as tomorrow we tour the Capitol!