Day 3 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

Saturday was our coldest day of our trip.  We woke up to snow falling in huge flakes, a cause for excitement for a Florida girl!  Our goal for the day was Junior Ranger badge #2, National Mall and Monuments.  It sounded fun when we woke up to explore the National Mall while the snow fell around us.  Lydia had completed most of the Junior Ranger book at home as preparation for the trip, all the National Park Service Junior Ranger programs are available on their website and can be mailed in for completion, a great resource for homeschoolers like us. 😊  

We discovered a less frequent Metro schedule on the weekend when we got the station, but made a new friend with a University of Illinois Alumni, headed to the Capitol for a board meeting.  It makes the world smaller when you meet people who know your hometown when you travel.  

Our first monument of the day was the Lincoln Memorial.  Its massive size and role in history makes it impressive. Lincoln is special to us since we live in the area where he started his political career as a circuit lawyer.  The snow got wetter and colder as we made our way down the mall stopping to visit the Korean Memorial and the newest WWII memorial.  What we forgot to consider as we envisioned visiting in the snow is there are no shelters on the Mall.  So for a Florida Girl caught in her first winter storm she got pretty miserable.  

World War 2 Memorial, Washington DC

As we rushed to find shelter in a Smithsonian Museum we were caught off guard by a blossoming Cherry Tree near the Washington Monument.  Lydia fell in love with the flowers, proclaiming it to be her favorite.  We warmed up with some Hot Chocolate and southern bread pudding in the American History Museum Jazz Cafe before exploring inside for the afternoon.  Lydia especially enjoyed the Spark Lab where kids could invent and work on solving real life problems hands on.  She planned and built a prototype of a housekeeping robot and had the coding figured out for it as well in her head.  

After a few more exhibits we found some dinner and made our way to Union Station for mom's special event of the trip, a moonlight tour of the monuments.  By now the snow had stopped and the sky had cleared, leaving everything covered in a blanket of white.  It was a beautiful way to end the day and experience our first snow in many years.   

Vietnam Memorial, Washington DC

Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC