Family Vacation to DC--Day 1

We were so fortunate this summer to take a trip out to Washington DC to visit our friend Maggie for her birthday. Our vacation started out by waking up at 4am to get the car packed...amazingly the twins were still sound asleep. We woke them up at 5am, changed diapers and headed to the airport. On the way the munched on a frozen waffle, drank some milk and then went back to sleep. It was relatively easy to check in and go through security and we had about 30 minutes to burn before we boarded the plane. Abby and Luke ate some breakfast and ran around to burn off some of their energy. We were nervous about the 3 hour flight ahead of us since they don't sit still too long anymore. Grandma Fischer, Abby and I had the last row of seats in the plane and Daddy and Luke were right in front of us. Abby fell asleep during take off and Luke played and entertained the back of the plane for the first 2 hours of the flight. Luke got tired and fought (rather loudly) his morning nap but eventually gave in. Soon after that Abby woke up and was ready to play. For the most part they did very well during the flight.

After landing in DC we found our way to the Metro and began navigating our way to the Donovan House Hotel. The kids loved riding on the train and of course Luke began flirting with any lady that smiled at him...it became a theme for the trip. The metro stop was about 3 blocks from the hotel so we had to truck it up a hill with the stroller, two suitcases and 3 carry ons...on a very humid afternoon. We made it, checked it, played in the cool room for a few minutes then went to have a late lunch.
We met up with Maggie in the afternoon to play and then take a walk. Abby and Luke were fast asleep so we stopped by an Italian bistro to have some cocktails and snacks. Yum! Once it got dark, Grandma stayed back to put the twins to bed and Sam and I went on an evening tour of the monuments with Maggie and Dave. It was pretty spectacular to see everything lit up so majestically. That night we saw the capital, White House, Supreme Court, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Memorial. Pictures can not explain how moving it was. We were pretty exhausted so we called it a day.