Washington, DC

We went to Washington, DC over spring break.  Only Bryan had ever been to our nation's capital, so we were all very excited to make the trip. It was the kids' third flight (fourth for Reggie) and our first leasure flight since Covid. 

We only had three full days for sight-seeing, and there was so much to see and do!  On the first day, we went up in the Washington Monument.  This turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was a good way to see the lay of the land from above.

Our second stop was the International Spy Museum.  It was a fun and unique experience, but considering our limited time, it would have probably been better spent visiting more of the free museums. 

That night, we went to an NBA game at Capital One Arena (Wizards vs. Bucks).  This was definitely the hightlight of Brett's trip.

The next day, we explored the monuments on the national mall more, and went to some museums.

Here's a selfie of Bryan and I imitating all the people taking selfies with Lincoln.

We went to three museums that day: National Archives Museum, National Museum of African American History and Culture, and National Museum of American History.  The National Achives Museum was a must because we got to see the original documents of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  It also had a temporary exhibit on the influence of sports in US History.

The kids' favorite museum turned out to be the National Museum of African American History and Culture.  It had exhibits of art, sports, and music.  Half of the museum was dedicated to the history of slavery and fight for freedom, which we did not have time to see.  It had an amazing cafeteria-style restaurant serving soul food, which turned out to be my favorite meal of the trip.

The National Museum of American History had some interesting exhibits, including a set of china from each presidency and all the First Ladies' inaugural dresses.  But the feature was the original flag that inspired The Star Spangled Banner.  Also, Lydia posed in front of Prince.

There were lots of food trucks and we did lots of walking.

Bryan's highlight of the trip was eating at Ben's Chili Bowl on U-street.  This is an iconic dive that has become a famous place for famous people to stop by and get a chili dog, even Obama and Brett.  We got our picture with the owner.

The last day was spent focusing on the three branches of government.  We only walked by the Supreme Court, as there was a large crowd of people and we didn't have time to wait.  We explored the White House Visitor Center and then went on a White House tour.  It was self-guided and there was a very high level of security.  The spaces we had access to were odviously limited, but it was still a pretty amzing experience.

The US Capitol was our next stop.  We did a guided tour.  It was a valuable experience, but again, we did not see a whole lot of it.

That last day was very cold and windy, and we had a lot of ground to cover.  We still had not made it to see all the monuments and Reggie wasn't feeling well.   We did a lot of zig zagging and could have been more efficient in our tour of the monuments with better planning.  Still we pushed through despite sore feet.  We were dead tired by the time we got back to the hotel, and had an early flight the next day.  So we made a meal out of appetizers at the hotel bar and called it a night.

Overall, it was a great trip, and I think our kids were at the perfect age to do it.  But I do want to go back some day to explore the museums more.  I'm sure we will because we still have the Nationals Ballpark on our bucket list.