DC with the Maddens

My parents were coming our way to do a church history tour with my uncle, so obviously they had to visit me and my sisters while they were here!  They had their dates all organized when I realized that they would be leaving my house the same day that Bentley came home from BYU, except they'd completely miss each other!  And since he's leaving on his mission soon after, that meant they wouldn't see him for two years!!!  SO I asked my sister Leah (who they were going to go see next) if they could stay an extra day with me.  Leah agreed to the new plan and was very generous about losing a day with them.

So when we realized that she would be in DC over the weekend with her family and we could probably meet up, I felt like I really owed it to her to try (even though driving to DC is the worst).  And we actually managed to make it work!  My parents and I left the house at 7am and met up with the Maddens at their hotel in Old Alexandria (thank goodness the hotel let me park there AND I'd driven the truck, which is much more maneuverable in a small parking garage than my bus van!).  From there we took the Metro into the city and visited the Spy Museum:

Leah, Theo, me, Eliot, Mom

I wasn't able to get tickets for the exact same time, so we sort of did the Spy Museum separately, but it was still super cool!  Craig had taken the kids there a few years ago while I was busy with a choir concert, so this was my first time going! 

I thought that their spy disguise for Theo was AMAZING:

Now he's going to want green hair when he's older!

And my disguise got a fun film noir vibe that I absolutely loved:

Why am I not styling my hair like this?  And wearing a fedora?  And living my life in black and white???

From there we grabbed lunch at a nearby food court before heading to the Museum of Natural History:

Gotta love giant sharks!

Brian, Theo, Eliot, Leah, Dad, me

I crack myself up

After that we sort of wandered.  There was talk of walking past the White House, but Theo was getting pretty tired, so we stopped and rested while my parents dashed into the Museum of American History to check out the Nauvoo Sunstone (they couldn't find it, though, and I couldn't the last time I was there, either-- is it just a myth???) and a display of First Lady's dresses.  By the time they were done, we'd decided not to bother with the White House since it was the wrong direction for our next stop, and instead headed to the wharf where we'd scheduled a water taxi to take us back to Old Alexandria.  We had just enough time to get ice cream before we boarded our taxi, and the ride was really nice.  (It did make me laugh-- as I was boarding the boat and sipping on my chocolate milkshake, the guy checking our tickets asked me rather sternly if my drink had alcohol in it.  When I told him it didn't, he said, "You need to have rum to board the boat!" 😂)

Leah had made a reservation for us at a pizza place called Emmy Squared and it was delicious (everything we ordered was top notch, but I was especially impressed with the salads!)-- definitely hit the spot after all that walking!  Old Alexandria was PACKED so I was glad she'd gotten a reservation-- finding a table for 7 might have been difficult!  And then once we were absolutely stuffed, we walked back to their hotel.  And then Mom & Dad and I got to drive back to Charlottesville!  We got home around 10:30pm, so it was a long day, but everything had gone really well (and the weather was perfect!!!) and we were so glad we'd gotten to spend time with Leah and her family!  Definitely a day well spent!