We all woke up rested and ready to see as much as possible on Day 2! We ate breakfast at our hotel, and then headed out for the day. When you request to visit the White House they tell you when to come, you don't get to pick a time that works for you. So when we were told our White House tour was at noon we knew we would have to go back to our hotel mid-day to get the stroller since you can't take strollers in the White House. I was a little concerned about making Clayton walk all morning Saturday and him not being exhausted-but he was such a champ!
Our metro map.
The kids loved riding the subway. Now they randomly will all say, "this is a silver line train to..." since they heard this constantly on the subway. They think it's pretty funny.
They also got a kick out of some of the subway stops "Fort Totten" (boys renamed Fort Tootin and thought they were hilarious) They also thought the Foggy Bottom stop was cause for lots of laughter!
It might be cheesy, but I packed everyone as much red, white, and blue to wear as possible.
So here we are heading out in our red white and blue for Day 2.
The beginning of our 30,000+ steps for the day.
Again, we kept pointing out all the beautiful buildings to the kids.
Taking a walking break.
So as I mentioned Saturday morning we headed out for lots of walking! After breakfast we took the subway to the national mall where we then saw all of the memorials. The National Mall is just such a neat area.
The whole time we were in DC on Day 1 the kids kept pointing out all the electric scooters you could rent and ride. We promised them we would let them try it before we left. So when we found one near the Washington Monument it was a perfect space for them to try it out without being right next to the road trying to control it. All six of us gave it a try. I'm sure we were the source of laughs for many others-but we had fun!
Have you even visited the Washington Monument if you don't do cartwheels on the lawn in front?! HAHA
Washington Monument.
The monument was under renovation of the elevator/stairs inside and closed to the public during our visit. We knew that before we arrived and we were okay with that because we viewed it from afar and then walked around the base and read the kids lots of facts about the monument.
The National Christmas Tree
The White House! It's interesting, I remember being able to go on the other side of the road right in front of the White House when we went when I was little, but now this is as close as you can get to this side of it. Good thing we had a tour later in the day!
We visited the Lincoln Monument of course.
This is one of my favorite monuments. Clayton had been collecting rocks (remember he was walking the whole national mall, this kept him occupied). He had to take a break on the way up the stairs and check out his findings.
Monuments
Walking along the reflection pond.
I could not believe what a champ everyone was about walking so much in DC, but especially Clayton on this particular day with no stroller!
Looking down from the Lincoln Memorial.
We were tired and hungry after walking and seeing all the monuments on the National Mall, but we didn't have long until we had to be at the White House...so we opted to enjoy some "street food" right outside the White House. Everyone was energized after this and we were right on time to begin going through security at The White House. John had submitted all of our paperwork a few months before we went, and we were so excited to be able to do this!!!
John carrying Clayton through the White House.
The kids thought this was pretty neat...we were able to view Barron Trump's soccer goals in the lawn outside one of the White House windows.
We enjoyed seeing many rooms.
Clinton
(it was interesting that on the floor when all of the first ladies portraits are, they had it roped off where you couldn't get this close to Hilary Clinton's painting...you could just view it from a distance)
This is the foyer where Michelle Obama and President Obama had their famous dance together beside the grand piano.
Lincoln
Checking out the rooms was REALLY neat.
The walls are covered in a material that is basically fabric.
George Bush
We all thought this room was pretty neat-the theater room!
Only Clayton would take the informational guide they provided the children with and turn it into a pretend gun, and say, "pew! pew! pew!" in the White House.
He was just enjoying himself, as you can see.
the State dining room
the views out the White House windows were very cool also.
It's really neat how everything is lined up in DC.
And these two pictures were a couple of my favorites from our trip.
Here's our family in the White House.
This was such a cool experience!
Selfie walking out the back door at the White House
Leaving the White House this building is right next door
After having walked miles around DC all morning, we knew we needed some sugar, some AC, and the stroller. So we stopped by a little market and grabbed the kids some ice cream and headed to our hotel room for them to eat it. We cooled off while in our room at the Embassy before grabbing the stroller and heading back out in a different direction.
This time we headed to the National Zoo! This was a complete change of pace which was nice to mix things up. We took the metro to a stop we had never been to before and then ended up with quiet a little trek to the zoo even so, but it was definitely doable. It was neat to walk through a totally different area of DC.
Viewing the elephants from above
Of all the things, I think the kids have talked about these armadillos more than any other animal we saw at this zoo-hah go figure!? We see tons of (mostly dead) armadillos on the roads here in Alabama, and the kids were amazed at how funny these armadillos were running around so fast! Clayton kept saying they were rolly pollies!
One of the animals that the National Zoo is famous for having is the Giant Pandas. We have seen giant pandas at the Atlanta Zoo once before, but that was several years ago.
Very cool!
Look at those meerkats!
Sweet Mr. Baby, loved the zoo!
So as I mentioned on the way TO the zoo we had quiet a trek from the subway stop to the zoo, so we decided to head to a different subway stop that seemed to be possibly closer when we left the zoo. Well, this way was pretty interesting-HAH we ended up walking through this REALLY long tunnel and up a seemingly endless hill...but we got to see another really neat and totally different little area of DC. And we ended up finding this delicious little Italian restaurant there where we all decided we would eat some fantastic pizza for dinner! SO good! Here's Nora Kate in the restaurant showing me that she's already got over 30,000 steps on her fitbit at this point in the day! That was crazy because after this she walked atleast another 1.5 to 2 miles! Most days we were there we all took 30,00+ steps! The kids were such troopers about the walking! They were so entertained though that no one was complaining!
Soooo the metrostop right by our hotel had a Krispy Kream right at the top of the escalator-we went in with the promise to grab donuts for the next day and somehow we ended up with the kids getting donuts right then. Not the healthiest of days between them eating ice cream, pizza, and donuts...but the 30,000 plus steps should have canceled it out! HAHA
This picture actually should have gone with DAY 1, but these are our tickets from touring the Capitol Building.
We had a fantastic DAY 2. My favorite part of this day was the White House.
We were all beyond ready to go to bed and rest up for DAY 3!
