Washington, D.C., Part 2: The National Mall

Our first full day in D.C. was a busy one. E.J. woke up earlier than usual, and then napped longer than normal in the morning, so we got a bit of a late start. But we set off on a mission—we had lots to see!

E.J.'s early wake-up call afforded him plenty of time to play with Buff before starting his day!

We hopped on the Metro and took it to L'Enfant Plaza, where we began our journey.

Ellie loved riding the train!

Catching our first real view of the District: for the kids, their first ever, and for me, my first in seven years!

It was so exciting to exit the station and walk out to the road to see the Washington Monument! Ah, I missed this place.

Hello there, D.C.!

We're excited!

We made our way out to the Jefferson Memorial first. Ellie was excited to climb the stairs and see the big statue!

The Jefferson Memorial

Up the steps!

Inside the Memorial

My pretty girl playing by the columns

We continued around the Tidal Basin to the FDR Memorial, which is one of my favorites. I love its sprawling design and all the fountains. I think it's very pretty and peaceful.

At the FDR Memorial

Eric and Ellie by the fountains

Eleanor

Ellie LOVED the dog!

We stopped at the FDR Memorial both for a little break and a photo op down by the Tidal Basin. Back in 2006, Eric and I had our engagement pictures taken there and we were eager to recreate our favorite one, but this time with our kids in tow!

Cuddle break!

Our engagement picture, taken in March 2006...

...and the current version, 9.5 years and two kids later!

From there we continued on to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, which is new since we left D.C.

The MLK Jr. Memorial

There are these long walls on either side of the large statue, and they feature numerous quotes from MLK. This was a particular favorite.

Eric and Ellie at MLK

Then we went over to the Lincoln Memorial, which has always been my favorite of them all. Of course, it now holds a particularly special place in my heart, because that is where Eric proposed to me! We checked out the monument then stopped at our "proposal spot" for some pictures.

The Lincoln Memorial

Inside the Memorial

Eric and the kiddos

Eric proposed to me right in this spot on January 19, 2006! It was significantly colder then.

Look at this sweet face!

The view of the Mall from the Lincoln Memorial

By that time we were ready for another break, so we stopped and sat on the Mall for a lunch picnic.

Relaxing!

My E.J.!

Feeling refreshed, we continued up the Mall to the World War II Memorial.

The World War II Memorial

One of two "Kilroy was here" engraved "graffiti" marks on the memorial - an homage to the graffiti sketch that became popular with soldiers during WWII and came to be a universal sign that American soldiers had left their mark on an area as they passed through.

The column in honor of the Pacific Theater

Looking up inside the column

We each found the pillar with our birth state on it!

I took selfies with E.J. throughout our trip, but this was was my favorite of them all.

Then, we made our way up to the Washington Monument (or, as Ellie calls it, "the big pencil"). We sat at the base and snapped a few more photos.

Looking lovely against that blue sky!

The boys

So big!

Sweet babies at the base of the monument

Three of the four of us!

By that time, we were spent. We made our way back to the train and returned to Jeff and Sarah's house. We put the kids down for naps (with mixed success), then when everyone was a bit rested, we went down to Jeff and Sarah's pool for some further relaxation. Ellie was very proud to show Godfather Jeff that she was "swimming all by [myself]!"

My little fish!

After swimming, Jeff and Sarah prepared a really exceptional meal for us: steaks and artichokes on the grill, with tomato and mozzarella. It was the best meal we've had in a long time, and was only made better by our al fresco setting and a little red wine. The kids also were on their best behavior (though Ellie declined the delicious feast and opted instead for cottage cheese, applesauce and bread, because that makes sense), so it was a really perfect ending to the day.

Dinner. Yum!

Or, you know, this looks delicious, too.

Dinner with friends!

After dinner we got the kids to bed and then spent more time visiting with Jeff and Sarah (and enjoying a yummy dessert of berries, brownies and whipped cream), until they made their exit to spend the evening out again. Eric and I spent some more time hanging out on the couch before calling it a day ourselves. Another day in the books!

To see more pictures of our National Mall sightseeing day, click here.

Coming up next: More D.C. sightseeing, and a trolley ride in Old Town Alexandria!

Washington, D.C., Part 1: Arlington National Cemetery

Well, I decided we should just go ahead and dive right in to the road trip recaps. I have lots to share, so there's no point in lollygagging around! Let's get to it!

We left Jacksonville as quickly as we could get out on Thursday, July 24th. We were ready to go! We drove about 6.5 hours that day up to Raleigh, NC where we stayed in a house via AirBNB for the night. E.J. started crying about 20 minutes into the trip, so that was fun. He was relieved to stop for breakfast after a couple of hours (weren't we all) and had a blast ripping up his leg by scoot-crawling all around the pavement in the outdoor seating area. After that, we discovered that Mum Mum crackers were generally a magic baby-crying-stopper and E.J. ate roughly a billion crackers over the course of the trip.

Otherwise, the drive was pretty uneventful. We did drive through some rain and were slowed down briefly by a couple of military convoys in the Carolinas, but otherwise everything went smoothly. We arrived in Raleigh with enough time to unload, feed the kids dinner and get them to bed (AirBNB served us well, allowing us to find two-bedroom houses for cheap so the kids wouldn't have to share a room). Then Eric and I had time to order pizza and watch a movie before heading to bed ourselves.

Our first day of travel!

Top row: E.J. appropriately dressed for a day in the car; heading out on our road trip; welcome signs in North & South Carolina

Middle row: Military convoy; relaxing at a lunch rest stop; one of only two bouts of rain we drove through on the whole trip (the worst one, though)

Bottom row: The kids slept! And honestly, how much of a diva is Ellie? She's actually sleeping like that.

We left our AirBNB the next morning and set out to finish the drive to Washington, D.C. We made a couple of longer-than-planned rest stops along the way: at Chick-Fil-A so the kids could play and at Arby's for lunch a couple hours later.

My kids' preferred modes of play summed up in one picture: Ellie is quietly playing with the mellow games and E.J. is climbing whatever he can find in search of certain doom.

Rocking the kids' meal toy at Arby's. Don't mess with the bull!

We ended up getting in to D.C. mid-afternoon-ish. We went straight to our friend Jeff's apartment in Old Town Alexandria, as we were staying with him and his wife Sarah for the weekend. Jeff helped us get our car parked and things unloaded, and we became acquainted with his dog Buffalo, who quickly became a major hit with our littlest travelers.

Made it to Virginia!

It's Buff! Like his owners, he was an excellent host.

Our plan was originally to arrive in D.C. around lunch time, feed the kids and let them nap then head out for some late-afternoon sightseeing. However, since we arrived later than anticipated, we decided to just power through naptime and get our sightseeing underway. We decided Arlington National Cemetery would be a pretty quick, easy outing to kick things off, so we walked over to the King Street Metro and were on our way!

I should mention that this D.C. visit came almost 10 years to the day after Eric and I (and Jeff) first moved to D.C., and roughly seven years after Eric and I left D.C. to move to New York. Eric had been back to D.C. for a visit since then, but (aside from a brief work trip the very weekend after we got to NYC), I hadn't been back to D.C. since. I was so excited to go back and see if I still loved it as much as I remembered, and I couldn't wait to take our kids for their first visit to our nation's capital. Standing on the platform at King Street felt so cool—when we lived in D.C., I worked at King Street so I rode the metro to and from that station daily. I was surprised at how easily my feet remembered the steps throughout our visit. It all came back to me and felt like we had barely been gone a day! I was so thrilled to be back.

Back at the King Street Metro! Though this time, it's not a work bag slung over my shoulder—it's my sweet little baby!

Anyway, when we arrived at Arlington, we set off sightseeing right away. I realize that almost all of our years in D.C. were pre-blog, so although there is some of the last few months of our D.C. life logged way back in the archives here, much of it went unrecorded. However, one of our coolest D.C. moments actually was in the early days of the blog, and it took place at Arlington: we were able to hear President Bush (current president at the time) at the cemetery on Memorial Day 2008. We sat only a few feet from him (and many other notable politicians) as he delivered his remarks, and it was such a neat experience.

Taken in Arlington National Cemetery, Memorial Day 2008.

This is not a "crazy zoomed in photo" situation - this is literally how close we were to the President. It was really cool.

Aside from that one particular occasion, Arlington Cemetery is one of the places we regularly frequented on sightseeing tours, both with visitors and on our own. So, we knew just where we wanted to go on this quick visit. We started off by heading up the hill to JFK's gravesite.

Making our way through Arlington

The view from JFK's grave

Peaceful.

Robert Kennedy, buried just around the corner from JFK.

For the most part, our kids observed the appropriate level of solemnity...that is, until Ellie saw the eternal flame at JFK's grave and asked if we were going to roast marshmallows. Oopsie.

Next we continued upward to the Arlington House and the grave of Charles L'Enfant to take in the view of the city.

View of the Pentagon on the way up

The Lincoln Memorial at the end of that road, and the Washington Monument. The second tallest tower is the Old Post Office Tower. We often took guests there for great views of the Washington Monument and the rest of D.C. (and getting to the top didn't require timed tickets/long waits as getting to the top of the Washington Monument did). I just learned that it is actually closed now as they are renovating it and turning it into a hotel.

The Washington Monument and Capitol Building. Unfortunately, the dome of the Capitol was covered in scaffolding. We had hoped for some nice Capitol photos, but alas! We'll just have to go back!

Family!

We continued on to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and we were just in time to see the changing of the guard. Ellie watched with interest for a few minutes before opting to climb all over the steps, so we didn't quite last through the whole thing.

Views as we walked

Headed to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Guarding the tomb

The guard

Watching the changing of the guard

Beginning of the ceremony

Salute

By that time, the kids had reached their breaking points so we made our way back to the Metro and to Jeff's house. We got them fed and to bed, and then we had a lovely dinner of pizza, salad and bread with Jeff and Sarah. They were exceedingly generous and volunteered to spend the night at a friend's house so we could make use of both of their bedrooms, so we spent some time catching up with them over wine before they had to head out.

And that was our first real road trip day! We were off to a great start!

To see more pictures from our journey to Raleigh, click here. For more pictures from Arlington National Cemetery, click here.

Coming up next: Our big D.C. sightseeing day—fun on the National Mall!

E.J. Walks!

I mentioned in my last post that E.J. learned to walk while we were on our trip!

That may be a bit of an overstatement, as his preferred method of transportation remains his scoot-crawl as of now. Frankly, I think he's just too good at it; he's too fast and efficient to abandon it for a slower, less graceful (if you want to describe the scoot-crawl as such) method. I get that. But, the wheels are in motion.

This strikes me as funny, considering that Ellie learned to walk when she was only about a month and a half older than E.J. is now, while we were on our Midwestern road trip in May of 2013. How strange that both my kids mastered this skill as we drove around the country!

E.J. took his very first steps on his birthday—just one or two little steps towards me to get the video monitor out of my hand. Since then he has done that again here and there, just a step or two every now and again, but nothing really to write home about. He also enjoyed doing some walking while holding someone's hand for the first half of our trip, but didn't seem particularly eager to go it alone.

E.J. and Eric strolling around Idlewild

However, as soon as we arrived in Cleveland, E.J. started going for it. Perhaps he understood how meaningful it would be for him to learn to walk in the same house where generations of kids in our family did just that before him. Perhaps he felt emboldened by his large, captive audience. Perhaps he was just looking for new ways to stretch his legs after spending so much time in the car. I don't know what his reasoning, but I know that all of a sudden, he was doing this left and right:

VIDEO: E.J.'s first real steps, on my grandfather's lanai, July 31, 2015

He got in a fair amount of practice for the rest of our trip, and I loved to watch him move!

Walking around at Pinehurst

But, he has slowed down again now that we're home. That's okay, though. As adorable as he looks stomping around, I know that E.J. up on two feet means its a whole new ballgame around here and frankly, I need to prepare myself. Things are going to get interesting!

Our Road Trip!

We're back from our trip! We were gone for a total of 14 days, drove over 2,500 miles and made (planned) stops in seven cities. We visited two amusement parks, met 12 PBS Kids celebrities, visited with four great friends and 18 family members, and nearly filled two 16-GB memory cards with photos. In short, we had a blast.

This trip was funny (but not unusual) because, as these things tend to do, we started out with a single destination in mind (my family reunion in Cleveland) and in thinking through our drive there, we found a number of stops to add, stretching the trip to its final lengthy duration. It was the sort of thing that, as we talked through it, we got more and more excited about all the fun things we could fit into one trip and marveled at how great this would be. We added stops in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia (and a visit to Sesame Place), Pittsburgh (and a visit to Idlewild amusement park, plus a pit stop at the Flight 93 Memorial), and Pinehurst, NC. Our itinerary was looking good!

Then, as the trip approached, our nerves picked up a little. All those stops stretched the reunion weekend into a full-on two-week road trip. We were spacing out the driving as much as possible, but still, that was going to be a lot of travel with a three-year-old and a one-year-old. When we shared our plans, people weren't really great at hiding that "OMG YOU ARE CRAZY" look on their faces, and we started to think they were probably right. Our itinerary looked a bit ambitious, and my mind started to fill with visions of sleepless night after sleepless night and car rides filled with the tortured screams of travel-weary children in the backseat. WHAT WERE WE THINKING.

In the end, though, everything was perfect. We only really had one minor child-related hiccup (a 4:00 a.m. wake-up from Ellie the morning we were driving from D.C. to Philadelphia), but for the rest of the trip, they were such troopers. They really slept pretty well, rolled with the punches when days ran long and naps got skipped, kept their happy demeanors and, most importantly, seemed to have lots of fun. Backseat screaming was even kept to a minimum and could usually be quieted with a new toy or container of Cheerios. Everything else went great, too—we only drove through rain a couple of times (at the start and end of our trip), and otherwise the weather was excellent (albeit hot) for every other part of the trip; we got where we were going in a timely manner; we saw what we wanted to see and made a lot of really great memories. Honestly, we could not have asked for better.

I am going to recap everything in depth (as if you would expect any different), but that's going to take some time because, as I mentioned, we took an absolutely ridiculous amount of pictures. So I have lots of editing and sorting and organizing to do. I may get started on recaps next week, or I may share some other things I've had in the works for a while next week and pick up the trip recaps the following week. We'll just wait and see how ambitious I feel over the weekend!

In the meantime, however, I'd like to give a brief synopsis of the great things we did. Consider this the Cliffs Notes version of our trip!

We left on Thursday, July 23rd and drove from Jacksonville to Raleigh, NC, where we stayed in a house (via AirBNB) for the night.

Here we go!

On Friday, July 24th, we drove the rest of the way to our first stop: Washington, D.C., where we stayed for 2.5 days with friends Jeff and Sarah. We were so excited about this stop, as it has been almost exactly 10 years since we moved to D.C. and seven since we left. I hadn't been back since we moved away, and I was excited to see it again and take the kids. The visit did not disappoint! We did lots of typical D.C. sightseeing and enjoyed time with our friends.

At Arlington National Cemetery

In front of the Lincoln Memorial, where Eric and I got engaged!

Eric and Ellie at the White House

On Monday, July 27th, we left D.C. and drove to Philadelphia, where we did some historical sightseeing and ran up the Art Museum steps Rocky-style (or, if you are a three-year-old girl, Elsa-style).

Family photo op in front of Independence Hall

My Elle-Belle and the Liberty Bell

Eye of the tiny toddler tiger!

VIDEO: Ellie on the Rocky Steps.

"Let it go! Let it go! Let it go! Let it go! Let it go!"

On Tuesday, July 28th we went to Sesame Place, where the kids especially enjoyed our breakfast with Elmo and friends. They had a blast and that meal experience in particular was probably my favorite part of the entire trip!

Ellie and Elmo

E.J. EXPLODED WITH JOY for Cookie Monster!

On the famous Sesame Street stoop!

On Wednesday, July 29th we left Philly and drove to Pittsburgh, making a stop at the Flight 93 Memorial along the way.

Looking out through the gate to the impact site

In Pittsburgh we stayed with my Aunt Rachel and Uncle Mark, and the kids loved playing both with them and with all the toys they put out for them. (E.J. was also particularly fond of the stairs and went up and down ad nauseam.)

E.J. playing with Uncle Mark! (And Ellie playing with all the zoo animal figurines, which were a big hit.)

On Thursday, July 30th we went to Idlewild amusement park specifically for the new Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood addition to the park. We rode the trolley, watched the Daniel Tiger show, and met Daniel and Katerina Kittycat. We also learned that Ellie LOVES to ride rides.

She's had her picture taken with the Vice President of the United States, but I'm pretty confident that this was Ellie's favorite celebrity sighting in her three years of life.

On Friday, July 31st we made the short drive to my Gramps's house in Cleveland, where Eric golfed, I visited with my friend Megan, and E.J. LEARNED TO WALK.

Getting into mischief at Great-Gramps's house! Stay tuned for a walking video!

The weekend was filled with reunion fun, and marked both my grandfather's 93rd birthday and the first reunion appearance for his three newest great-grandbabies. We had a great time together!

The Hesterman clan!

(We're missing the six members of the Idaho contingent and my sister Heather, who is still in Japan.)

The big girls helping their Great-Gramps blow out his birthday candles

"The Greats!"

Hesterman great-grandbabies, in age order: Zazi (3.5 years old), Ellie (3 years), Santiago (3 years), E.J. (1 year), Kinga (4 months) and Milena (also 4 months)!

The three big kids walking hand-in-hand through Memphis Kiddie Park

On Monday, August 3rd we left Cleveland and made the drive to Pinehurst, NC, where we spent the day on Tuesday with golf for Eric, a spa day for me, and some fun on the putting greens with the kids in the evening.

Eric and his kids on the 18th green of Pinehurst No. 2

Putting, with help from E.J.!

Ellie made her shot!

And then on Wednesday, August 5th, we packed up the car for the last time (thank goodness, because that was a chore) and made our way back to Jacksonville!

I think that's everything!

What a great trip with my wonderful little family!