Pierson Family: Washington DC: Week 1

We just got home from our month long trip to Washington DC. Overall it was a great adventure that I would do again. It took us about a week to get settled in and use to our new environment. We stayed in a one bedroom apartment in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. Its a fun, ethnically diverse neighborhood that has been part of some of the gentrification projects in the area. After getting over some initial culture shock, we felt very safe there and found our niche. Our apartment was on the third floor of the building, so combine that with the flight of stairs to the front door of the building, and I carried our stroller + Sage + groceries or whatever else we were packing up four flights of stairs every time we went anywhere. After about a week I got used to it and it wasn't so bad. Though the experience overall did make me grateful for my house, yard, car, etc. In the apartment we put Sage's pack n' play in the closet in the bedroom, Mason slept on the (king size) bed, and Nic and I shacked it up on the futon in the living room. It worked out pretty well, though Mason has fallen out of bed twice since coming back to his twin size bed.

Nearly every day we went on a new adventure. DC is great because so much of the things to do there are free. We went to museums, monuments, the zoo, fun neighborhoods, markets, parks, and even made a lovely trip up to Hershey. I'll let the pictures (and the captions) do the talking. Here is week one.

Don't be fooled. She fell asleep once we landed at Reagan, and therefore only slept for about 15 minutes while we waited for our gate to open up. Pretty sweet though.

The kitchen. Our apartment was actually and okay size. About 1100 sq. feet. The dishwasher and oven were tiny though. And it was very...Ikea. Which isn't a bad thing by any means. Just lots of clean lines and sharp corners for me worry about.

This is actually kind of a rare photo. My kids don't watch much T.V. Mason will sit for a few minutes, but with the exception of a few shows he isn't too interested. I'm okay with that.

Here is Mason being introduced to his love. The Metro. He loved to ride the Metro. We'd take him somewhere super fun and spend all day doing awesome things, but at the end of the day when asked what he liked the best he always said, "the subway." In fact, after we'd get out of the subway at any destination he would usually beg to get back on. And it never got old for him.

Our first stop when we got there was the Air and Space museum. Mason loved this when we took him here at 15 months, and he still loves it. Sage thought it was pretty cool too.

Ah the zoo. This zoo is awesome AND its free. It was about a mile walk from our apartment straight down a very steep hill. (Therefore a mile walk back straight up a very steep hill.) We went here 3 or 4 times and the kids loved it. Mason loves to see all the animals in the smaller habitats (i.e. frogs, snakes, naked mole rats) and Sage loved the elephants.

We watched these young lions play and growl and roar for about a half hour. It was pretty cool.

Our first trip to the zoo. It had rained the night before, so there were lots of puddles.

My first order of business when we got to DC was to find a decent park. Our apartment was too small to spend any more time than necessary in, and I wanted a place I could take the kids on "non-adventure" days. This park was perfect. It was clean, safe, and had toys that fit both kids well.

I also liked that Mason got to meet and play with kids from all kind of backgrounds. At one point he was playing with 3 kids, none of which were speaking the same language. Yet they just played liked they didn't even notice that they couldn't understand each other. I very much want my kids to understand and appreciate that not everyone is the same, and that can sometimes be difficult to accomplish where we live.

This is a bad picture I know (and I have no idea what is floating in front of Sage's face), but it was the only one I got in front of the awesome elephant at the Museum of Natural History. This is another awesome museum for kids.

Mason doing his best Macbeth.

Awesome.

One day Nic met the kids and I down on the mall. We were able to see the president's helicopter land at the white house. We didn't actually see the president himself, but the whole ordeal was fun to watch.

Unfortunately for me this is the only picture we got in front of the White House. I am terribly un-photogenic and my eyes are half closed in most of the pictures I'm in. Just wait. You'll see.

Chinatown

This broom and a small mop occupied the kids a lot while we were in the apartment. Very tidy little people.

The first weekend we were there the National Book Festival was held on the mall. There were hundreds of authors there to do readings, book signings, etc. There was a kids tent where they had live music (Choo Choo Soul was there and Mason thought it was awesome.)

WWII memorial. There were lots of veterans here and I tried to explain to Mason who they were and why they were important. He couldn't get his brain past the war part and I spent the better part of the conversation trying explain what war was in a 3 year old version.