A Monumental Day

We did it, we found the secret government location for DC Monument parking, and the address is 1000 Ohio St SW, if you're planning to go.  It's a free parking lot with access to all the monuments and a nice, picturesque walk around the tidal basin.  Today we did allllll the monuments.  At each one, I declared it my favorite.  They are all so powerful.  Today, the Vietnam was my favorite favorite.

At one point, I was walking with Ptolemy and Ruby and I said, "Boy, this is a big group.  It's a good thing we don't have more kids!"  Ptolemy pointed up ahead at some of the other kids and said, "We DO have more kids!  Look!"

Yeah, we sure do!

I sear the guidebooks say the monument loos is only 2 miles, but it's longer, especially for Xanthe.  Her body is in constant motion, and she walks three miles for every mile that the average person walks.  AND she swings her arms, jumps, skips and hops while she does it.  Needless to say, she runs out of energy first.  At that point, she flops her arms down like a neanderthal and slumps along, thereby STILL using twice as much energy as everyone else.  There was a time today when she was racing from park bench to park bench so that she could "rest" on each one.  Not very effective in terms of relaxation.  The kid is a character!

 Roosevelt Monument

 Lincoln Monument, reading the Gettysburg Address.

 Vietnam Wall

 Our little group.  We love these little things!

 My happiness and satisfaction; being their mom.

 "If you need me, I'll be at the top of these stairs."

 Taking a rest to take in the view.

 Jefferson Memorial

 When we got home, Freestone told Trajan that his favorite monument was the Jefferson.  Trajan asked him who Jefferson was, and he said, "Uuuuh, the guy in the monument."  Like it was a dumb question.  So they may or may not have had any idea what they were looking at, but I think they got a sense of it, at least!

 Roosevelt memorial has always been my favorite of the favorites.  I love the way they did the statue in the wheelchair, but covering it with the cape.  And the dog.  And all the haunting, beautiful, prophetic quotes.

 Amen!

 MArtin Luther King, Jr. Monument was under construction so we didn't take many pictures.  It's a great monument, though.

 I love the Korean War Memorial.  The statues' faces are so telling of the fear, the terror.  I have always seen a lot of Asians there, and some of the older people, you have to wonder if they experienced it from the other side.

 My baby boy is so cute!

 WWII, a nice place to relax and contemplate.

 

 "Wait for me!"

At the end of the monument tour, we took the kids through the kid arts of the Holocaust Museum, them Scott took the big kids through the rest of it while I took four little ones on a nice, leisurely walk back to the car, stopping on the way under the cherry trees to eat snacks.  Lots of snacks.

I can't say anything about the Holocaust Museum.  That is everyone's own personal journey.  I was too choked up to talk as we walked through "Daniel's Story," the tour they have for children.  It shows Daniels' nice, happy German home, then you move into his apartment in the ghetto, and finally with him to the concentration camp, where the rest of his family dies.  The exhibit is based on a little boy's journal.  Scott, Golda, Ruby, Freestone and I talked about it late into the night tonight.  Ari is deeply affected by these things.  She said it was one of her favorite parts of the trip.  Ptolemy drew this sweet picture.  He felt sad.

 Look at that expression of satisfaction on Tziporah's face.  She loves to be independent.

We then tooled around Georgetown, stopping for a dozen cupcakes at the famed D. C. Cupcakes store, which we ate at a park near a splash pad.  Scott was outvoted on the kids not getting soaked, so they did, and they were cooled off for pizza and the baseball game.

There is something euphoric about being in a baseball stadium on a perfect summer night, with the bright lights and happy crowd.  Scott and I both posted pictures to Instagram, his focusing on home plate and mine focusing on the pretty marquis.  Symbolic of how we enjoy the experience differently.  Scott is actually tuned in to what is going on baseball-wise.  I am admiring how satisfyingly lovely the setting is.  And it was dollar hot dog night!  Bargains, baseball and beauty.  There ya go.

Freestone has the King "Stay Until the Bitter End"  gene, so we stayed as long as we could before running out to beat the crowds and the traffic shortly before the last out of the game.

By the time we got back to Bethesda, and asked the kids what they wanted to do tomorrow, they were begging for mercy.  The kids who were still awake said, "Sleep in!"

I think we will!