Day 5 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

FACT:  over 15,000 books have been written about America's 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, which when stacked is 4 stories tall! He has the second most biography written about him, second only to Jesus.

Its our last day in the Nation's Capitol and we are going to make it count!  Today's plan is seeing the Ford's Theater and learning about Lincoln's final chapter of his life and career.  Being from the Midwest, where he started he career as a lawyer and politician it was neat to see the other part of his career.  The Ford Theater has been restored to close to its grandeur of the 1860s, and is a active theater with live performances in the evenings.  

It is also a National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service which means one more Junior Ranger badge for Lydia! At any National Park or Historic site you can ask a Ranger for a book to complete.  Ford Theater had a double tiered Junior Ranger program, do a minimum amount of activities for a badge and certificate, and an additional number for an additional patch.  Lydia did enough activities for the patch and badge.   Did I mention they do a swearing in ceremony when a child earns the Badge? 

There are multiple parts to the Ford Theater attraction and when you book tickets online you can see the options.  There are timed entrances to the museum under the theater that details Lincoln's last term of his presidency and also the conspiracy Booth tried to create in his assassination plot.  There are walkthroughs of the theater including the recreated booth he was shot,  if you are lucky enough like we were you can look in the door to the Presidential booth and look over Lincoln's chair to the stage.  You can also tour the Peterson House across the street where Lincoln took his final breaths as well as additional exhibits of the aftermath of his assassination and Lincoln's lasting legacy for our nation. 

Presidential Box in Ford's Theater

The Ford's Theater gave Lydia her 3rd Junior Ranger Badge for the trip, not bad for a 5 day adventure.  We left the theater in search of a few more Stamps for mom's Passport Book and some lunch.  Some Passport Stamps can be tricky to find, but there is an app available to help you find them.  We found the Historic Pennsylvania Avenue Stamp in the Old Post Office now the Trump hotel.  The lower level has a historical display including old vault doors and historical photographs.  

We found some lunch and a surprise at the Reagan International Trade building.  We visited the food court another night over the weekend and found it open but deserted.  it was a very different experience on Monday when it was bustling with government workers.  Tucked in one corner of the building we found a portion of the Berlin wall and the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Memorial Exhibit.  Might as well learn about one more President before we leave town. 😋

Reagan International Trade Building

A certain girl was starting to yearn for home so we headed to our hotel to pick up our luggage and then on to the airport where another adventure awaited us.  While we were seeing the city one last time our plane home was already being delayed.  It was already delayed enough to cause us to miss our connecting flight and we had to look into alternate options to get home in a timely manner.  The best option was to hire a shuttle and drive to the Baltimore Airport and take a direct flight home.  We arrived home at the same time as our original flight with out having to do a layover!  And that first flight that was delayed 40 minutes when we changed plans, ended up being delayed 4 hours!  We were glad we made other plans!  

She has the traveling bug and is already thinking up our next #mommyandme adventure.  On our quest for National Park Passports and Junior Ranger Badges the Nation is our classroom.  

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

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!