DC

Fountain in front of the Library

The cupcake.

Me on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial.

Our Capitol.

Jefferson Memorial.

Inside the National Library.

Lincoln Memorial.

Shem.

The White House.

We spent our entire fourth week with Aunt Barbra in Annapolis and Washington, D.C. It was so nice to stay some place for more than a couple of days and we enjoyed being able to rest. Aunt Barbara and Martin were so accommodating and fun to talk with, they really made us feel very much at home.

Our first day there (Thursday, July 23rd) we just took it easy and relaxed most of the day. Shem had fun swimming around in the pool and I was completely exhausted so I slept for most of the day. I’m really not sure why I was that tired, but my body just didn’t want to be a wake, so I gave in and napped. In the late afternoon we went for a bike ride to the capitol building in Annapolis, MD and apparently the building served as our nation’s capitol until D.C was completed. It was a short bike ride through the historic area downtown to get to the capitol and it was so different to see all the buildings built so close together and to ride on the narrow cobble stone or brick streets. Around the capitol building is a traffic circle that allows cars to go one way around the building with all of these arterial streets that look like spokes coming out of the capitol circle. Well when we decided to leave we got our bikes and I took off first and Shem got stuck behind some cars. When he passed then he couldn’t see me anymore so he guessed which street I went down, but he couldn’t find me and I couldn’t see him anymore either when I stopped around the corner to wait for him. I rode down one street to look for him, but I still couldn’t find him so I decided to wait for him at the capitol building since I didn’t really know the way back and I just assumed that he would come back to look for me. Well every time he came back up to the capitol he didn’t see me so he decided to go down the hill and wait for me…I never showed up so he biked back home thinking I left without him. I was still up on the hill waiting for him and feeling really lost and upset because he left me (remember I had been completely tired all day long, well it made me kind of crabby as well and very sensitive to everything!).

Eventually I saw him drive by with the car and he finally noticed me and he expressed how worried he was about me. I was just upset. I was left alone on the hill for 45 minutes, but still glad that he came and got me.

Later that evening we went out on the dingy with Aunt Barbara and Martin to see some live music in the bay and while Aunt Barbara was pulling the cord to start the dingy her hand came back and slapped me right in the face! I was so shocked I thought that she had broken my nose and then I started to cry because I had already been traumatized by being left alone at the capitol…I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had a puffy lip for about 5 days and I discovered that Neosporin works not only to heal wounds, but it’s a great lip gloss as well.

On Friday we decided to tour D.C. on our bikes. We saw the whole mall in one day while riding our bikes around and it was just incredible! It was so hot, but once we got back on our bikes we rode with the wind flying through our hair and it worked well to cool us off. We saw all of the major monuments, Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington Monument, the White House, Franklin D Roosevelt, the National Archives, the Capitol Building, and the National Library. The library was my favorite and I loved the lighting around the Jefferson Memorial later in the afternoon. Shem had a lot of fun reading about the monuments and I really enjoyed taking some pictures. Later that evening we ate dinner at Aroma, an Indian restaurant which was very much enjoyable.

We pretty much chilled over the weekend and spent Saturday with Aunt Barbara and Martin at the house. We had planned to take her massive boat out, but it was out of commission for 24 hours, however we did get to go sailing on the neighbor’s sailboat in the Chesapeake Bay! Gus took us and a whole bunch of teenage girls out in the bay along with Aunt Barbara and her friend Barbara and it was a blast learning how to sail out there! Unfortunately I forgot the camera so we didn’t get any pictures.

In the evening we went to this crab shack and ate a ton of blue crab. That was quite the experience beating your food with a wooden mallet and then picking out the crab meat in this little restaurant on the bay while the governor of Maryland sat at the table next to us. He too was beating his food like it was still alive and then using all of his fingers to pull what little crab meat was in there out. We’ve learned that Blue crab has nothing up on our west coast Dungeness and King crab.

Sunday we laid low at the house and went to church and then checked out the Navy campus and Monday we spent some more time in the museums. We went to the National Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History and the Art Gallery. We also went to a bakery called “Red Velvet”, they sell $3.75 cupcakes made from the best European ingredients, but it really wasn’t worth it. Yogurt land would have been much better. All in all our stay in D.C. was amazing and we really enjoyed ourselves the whole time.