Monday, May 24, 2010

Our nation's capital -OR- we love business trips


Scott's business trip demands are very low. Usually just once or twice a year he needs to go out of town in the name of putting food on the table. I've been scheming to go along with him one of those times, but there always seemed to be something important going on with the kids' schedule, or a nursing baby, or some such preventing the perfect getaway. A couple of weeks ago he was required for a few days in our nation's capital to train the good folks at the Travel channel on some new computer applications. We seized our chance and gratefully accepted Grammy and Grandpa's willing offer to keep all five kids (thank you!) while we took in all our nation's capital has to offer.
Our nation's capital was chilly and cloudy and drizzly while we were there. We didn't mind, we were grateful it was not hot.
We were very impressed with the metro system. I don't know if it's just newer or what, but we found it much nicer than NYC's subways. I liked even the stations.

Our time in our nation's capital was short. We only had two actual days in town. The first day while Scott was engaged with his work stuff (you know, the reason we were able to do all this almost entirely for free, and stay in a nice hotel with made-to-order omelets as part of the included breakfast, instead of just muffins and juice) I spent the whole. entire. day. reading. Like this:

See? I was so pleased with my time I even set the camera timer to capture my hours of blissful relaxation. I brought four books with me (just in case!) but only made it through one. I wish there had been more days for just reading without having to stop. I don't know how many days it would take me to get tired of doing that, but I'm sure it is a very, very large number.
Scott was done by six or so the first night and by two in the afternoon the second day (on which day I did not read, but slept in then packed and went on ahead to meet him at the Washington Monument), which gave us plenty of time to tour all there is to tour along the national mall (except all of the museums, there are so many museums! we would have liked to spend half a day inside of each one, but time would not allow so we only stepped into about four). Neither one of us had been to our nation's capital since sometime in grade school, so it was much fun to see it all again. We are anxious to come back with the kids sometime. I loved showing them all of our photos and talking about what they were and having Emma and Ben frequently jump in with "Hey, we learned about that in school this year!"
A big, white house:

They drained the reflecting pool because apparently the water was causing some birds to get sick. Boo.
Scott made some demands.
We had fun.

8 comments:

nbarnes2 said...

wow lori you look so gorgeous! im glad y'all had fun. i love d.c.

Yo Mama said...

How dare you say that D.C.'s subways are cleaner than NYC's. What an outrage!!! Kidding. Also, love that pic of Scott making his demands. So funny.

Laura said...

Oh you guys are so cute! I am glad you had a good trip! You look so pretty!

julie said...

so wait, did you say you went to our nation's capital?

Sharlene, Mom, Grammy said...

GREAT pictures! Great trip. The best of both worlds---business and pleasure. I love the very last pix of you and Scott. It's frame-able! Such a very handsome, classic couple. Love it!

PS ~ Got another business trip? Just call us--we're good to go and what I mean by "go" is "tend." Or we could "go" with you---your decision. :)

Jeanne said...

We've done D.C. twice now for about the same of amount of time as you. The first time I was amazed at how much we could actually see when we didn't have little legs to worry about.

I really like visiting there too.

I'm glad you had fun!!

Brad said...

Lori you look like Julie in the white house picture.

joelb said...

...and you look like lisa in the profile shots in front of washington monument.

btw, stupid birds.

btw2, why don't they turn it into an ice skating venue? or would the birds whine about that too?