Washington D.C. Final Day

Our last day our Aunt and Uncle took us around to a few more stops. We drove up to the temple grounds. It is such a beautiful temple. It was also nice having a nice warm day again. Carter enjoyed playing on the grass outside of the visitors center. We stopped for a minute at the National Cathedral. It definitely reminds me a lot of some of the cathedrals I saw when I was in Europe. For lunch we went to an Afghan resturaunt. We both really enjoyed the food. Their bread is really yummy! One of the best things of our trip was getting to spend so much time with my aunt and uncle since we don't get to see them very often. Carter really liked them both. He especially seemed to make friends with my uncle. Carter did well again on the plane ride home. He enjoyed playing with the covers on the windows, luckily we had the window seat this time. He finally fell asleep for about the last hour of the flight. He was an exhausted boy after such a busy week!

Washington D.C. Day 8

Our last full day in D.C. I still wished we had more time to see more things. There is just too much to do there! This picture shows Carter's nice battle wounds from Iwo Jima when he and the pavement had a meeting. His poor nose and forehead. View from the top of the Old Post Office Tower. Outside the Old Post Office. There was a very cold wind this day. Inside the White House visitors center. It was a very interesting visitors center that I thoroughly enjoyed. There is a nice video with a lot of history I'd never known about the White House. Inside the Library of Congress. It is a pretty building. Inside the capital. This is a replica of the statue that sits on top of the capital. The Supreme Court in the back and a not so happy Carter about being picked up. Out front of the capital. Carter still un-happy about being picked up. He had lots of fun walking around. Library of Congress. Waiting for the metro to head back for the evening. Carter was such a trooper on this trip but by today he was done with the busy schedule. That night Lance and I were able to meet up with one of his best friend's growing up and his wife. They live back there right now. It was fun to get to meet up with them. We ate way to much food at one of the best burger joints I've ever been to, yummy burgers, yummy fries, and yummy shakes. It was called Good Stuff Eatery. After we just walked around. The capital and all the buildings were so pretty at night. We wandered over to Union Station to get out of the cold for a bit. It was kind of sad riding the metro back that night, knowing our fun adventure was almost over.

Smart Boy

Yesterday morning Carter brought one of shape and color books into Lance. Carter started "reading" it and when he got to the page with green he pointed at the green, then looked up at Lance and pointed at his shirt which was also green that day. Lance told him he was right and Carter kept pointing back and forth between his shirt and the green in his book for a while. We're a little bias but we sure think our boy is one smart boy!!

Easter

We had a nice Easter this year including a couple of egg hunts. One of our friends put on an Easter egg hunt in their backyard earlier in the week. Once Carter got in the backyard he was excited to see the play-set and starting charging towards that. We were able to draw his attention to the eggs on the ground and he picked a few up. Then it was off to the play-set again. He was very upset when we took him back inside after letting him play for a little while. It was a chilly day and we were cold. Carter loves being outside and doesn't seem to care if it's freeing or not. I know we are going to be using lots of sunblock this summer! For the weekend, Lance went up to his parents house to pick up a trailer from his parents. Carter and I decided to head over to his sisters house. I had a bridal shower for one of my good friends from high school I went to on Friday night. It was so much fun to see so many friends I haven't seen in years. I stayed up way too late!!! But it was worth it. (If any of you girls are reading this that have pictures, you need to send me copies please) I really appreciated my SIL for watching Carter for me while I went. The next morning we had a little Easter egg hunt in her neighborhood. Once again, Carter picked up a few eggs and put them in his bucket. But he was more interested in running around outside. We all headed home Saturday evening so we could make it back to our Stake Conference the next morning for Easter Sunday. I had bought Carter a new spring suit. He looks very handsome in it! He really was more excited than he appears in this picture. He just didn't want to hold still and smile for pictures. Can you tell someone is teething? He's been chewing on his fingers for weeks and a couple more of his frontish teeth are just peeking through. Didn't even want to smile for a picture with mom.

Battle of the "NO"

Lance and I got a kick out of this little event that happened during stake conference. There was a family with a little boy around Carter's age sitting across the isle from us. This little boy had a bag of the gerber yogurt metls, essentially freeze dried yogurt, for his snack. Carter loves these yogurt melts and recognized them right away, just from the bag. He started pleading with us saying "more" while doing his little sign language for "more" as well pointing at these snacks. We got out his corn chex we had brought, which he instantly refused. Honestly, who wants corn chex when there are delicious yogurt melts to be had? He continued to plead with us asking for "more" not understanding that we couldn't very well give him some of the stranger's snacks. Soon enough this other little boy caught on that Carter was coveting his snacks. He stood there eating away just watching whining Carter. At some point one of them started the battle of "no." I don't remember who said it first but soon they were saying and sometimes yelling "NO" back and forth the isle at each other. Lance and I had a hard time containing our laughter as at each random moment during the ordeal a series of "NO" could be heard from these two little boys. Eventually we were able to distract Carter along to something else.

Washington D.C. Day 7

Thursday we went to Mount Vernon. It was one of our favorite places to visit. It was so interesting to learn all the things about George Washington. I had no idea he really didn't want to be President and didn't want all the attention. He just wanted to live on his farm but he did it all because of a sense of duty. It is also amazing to realize how close this beautiful piece of property and history almost came to ruin when the later generations of his family had to sell the property and the government at the time didn't have the money to buy it. That's were the Mount Vernon Ladies Association came in and they still keep it up to this day. I also found it very impressive that he made provisions in his will for all of his slaves, to set them free and provided some means for them. He was truly a man ahead of his time. There are a couple of really neat museums there as well as all the building and things outside. Carter was especially active this day which made it hard to try and sit through the videos and read everything in the museum. However Carter really liked this horse. Mount Vernon in the background. Down by the Potomac River. A replica of the 16 sided treading barn that George Washington designed. We took turns going through the tour of the house so that we didn't have to leave the stroller outside and since we figured Carter wouldn't do very well on the tour. It worked out well because Carter ended up falling asleep. Here's a view I took from the front porch of Mount Vernon with Carter sleeping in his stroller. Who wouldn't love that view? In the front of Mount Vernon. After, we finished our day off at the newer Air and Space Museum which is out by Dulles Airport. It's a larger hanger with tons of original and replicas of planes and space stuff. I liked this one a lot more than the one down by the mall. It's just so interesting seeing all these full size planes and reading the plaques with the history of them (which we didn't get to do too much of because of a tired Carter). Here's the boys in front of Enterprise, a full size space shuttle. Blurry picture but I thought this was funny. It's the trailer that the astronauts from Apollo 11 stayed in after they returned from the moon until the scientist and doctors decided for sure that they didn't bring back any "moon bugs" with them. Not sure what this place is but it's really cool. Lance took lots of pictures while we were there. A view of one side of the hanger. You can see an Air France Concorde in the middle. Enola Gay, the B-29 Bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. After a long day, back at my aunt and uncles house. Carter was trying to help dad build a marble track.

Time-out

I'm taking a little break from our D.C. trip to post about Carter's first week of time-out. We've been talking about doing it for a while and decided that he was getting old enough to understand. He also has been starting to hit a lot and keeps doing things when we tell him not to, so we figured it was a good time. The first day he got put in time-out because he kept hitting me. I had warned him if he did it again he'd be going in time-out. When he did it again and I picked him up and took him to his little chair in the corner he just started crying and crying. He only got off twice, which I just picked him back up and put him back in the chair. After his minute he was done and I got him down. He then decided to go back over to the chair and climb into it himself. Funny boy! Since that first time he hasn't tried getting down at all once we put him in the chair but still continues to cry a lot of the time. Hopefully it will start getting through to him and it will decrease some of the hitting and other not so pleasant behaviors.

Washington D.C. Day 6

Wednesday my aunt was nice enough to drive us around to see all the different memorials/monuments. It was fun spending the day with her even though it was a little cold at times. First we stopped by the Pentagon Memorial, for those who died there on 9/11. Lance and I both thought it was a very well done memorial. The bench things you see behind Lance are for each of those who died, they have water running under them. The ones facing away from the Pentagon are those who died on the ground. The ones facing towards are for those who were on the plane. They also have them lined up so each row is for those who were all born during that year i.e. 1955, then 1956 etc. It was really sad to see how many young children were on the plane, many in the same family. I can't believe it has almost been 10 years. If you'd like to read more about it you can go here. Next we stopped at the Air Force Memorial. Then we went up to Arlington Cemetery . I really think it is one of the prettiest places. While we were walking around we saw a funeral procession going through. It was neat seeing all the soldiers marching with the procession. We went up to Arlington House, which was Robert E. Lee's house. They were doing construction in all the rooms so there wasn't too much to see, other than the pictures they had of what the rooms usually look like. It is amazing how straight all the grave sites are. Lance and I with the Vietnam Memorial in the background. I really like this one because it has the names of everyone who died engraved on it. It really puts into perspective how many people lost their lives. I also thought it was neat they had many books around there that you could look up people to see where their name was on the wall. The nurses memorial. I had to get a picture with this one of course. The Einstein Memorial. Kind of a funny memorial but neat. Outside the Lincoln Memorial. Lance and Honest Abe. Looking out towards the Washington and over the reflecting pool. Which was not so reflecting. Like many things we found, was under a big renovation. The Korean War Memorial. The World War II Memorial. Another one of my favorites just because it was so pretty. This was the first time I'd seen this one since it hadn't been built when I had been here back in High School. From the WWII Memorial looking up towards the Washington Memorial. After here I think is when we went and stopped for lunch. We ate at an Ethiopian restaurant. It was a good new experience. Lance thought it was pretty good. I thought it was alright but not something I need to eat again. It was neat having so many different cultures, not something we get a ton of at home. The start of FDR's Memorial. This one was a favorite for all of us. There is a lot of cool information about the symbolism of the design on this one. It's also really pretty. Check out those cherry blossoms! It had been so nice earlier in the week (unlike the last have of the week which was cold and wet a lot of the time) that they came out a little earlier than expected. It was great getting to see them and enjoy them and not have the crowds that come during the official Cherry Blossom Festival. Also a neat view from the FDR of the Washington. I think you can see that from almost anywhere in downtown. Lance and Carter standing in the bread line. One of Carter's favorite things from the whole trip. If you haven't seen the cute video of him meeting Fala you should look back in my previous posts. We got him out of the stroller when we were coming up to it and as soon as he saw the "woof-woof" he ran up and started hugging the statue. He just kept hugging her and saying "woof-woof." Then here and there he'd turn around and point up at the Statue of FDR. Still excited about the dog. Lance helping Carter check out some cherry blossoms. More cherry blossoms on our walk around the Tidal Basin. Lance on our little stroll with the Jefferson Memorial in the background.

Inside the Jefferson Memorial, which also had some renovations going on.

Here's Carter and my aunt at the Iwo Jima Memorial. Carter had lots of fun running around there. My aunt also taught him to throw sticks down through the drainage grates. He had great fun! He was not so excited about being stopped from his fun for picture time. I hadn't realized how huge this statue was. There is also a lot of interesting history about this statue. You can barely see his battle wounds from Iwo Jima on his forehead. He had a little incident with the pavement while we were there. He didn't let that keep him down for long though. He was happy to be down running around after our family picture moment. He wasn't so happy when we started leading him towards the van to leave.