Painting the Town

On President's Day morning, we took one last opportunity to visit the city.  We wanted to get a few pictures of the kids with DC monuments before we left town the following Saturday. 

We started at the World War II Memorial.

There is a pillar for each state.  We found North Dakota's first.

and then Nebraska (my home state),

We made a stop at Maryland, of course,

and then we stopped at all the states Clancy might be born.

We were moving from Maryland to North Dakota when I was 38.5 weeks pregnant.  We knew that there was a chance that he/she could come as we plodded along through Ohio, Indiana,

Illinois or Wisconsin.

After our tour of Clancy's potential birth sites, we headed to the Lincoln Memorial,

where we got a great and distant view of the Washington Monument

and took a few pics with good ole Abe.

The girls bounded down the steps with Joe,

took a rest

and we finished out the tour at the Tidal Basin with the Jefferson Memorial in the background.

A few other items of note about our tour:

1.  It was chilly and there was LOTS of whining about being cold.

2.  Theia skinned her knees just outside the Lincoln Memorial and was crying and howling and carrying on so much that a Park Ranger stopped us and asked if she could help.  We explained the situation and she pointed us to a First Aid station.  Later we saw her again and she had thoughtfully gone out of her way to find to bandaids for Theia.  Theia, of course, then refused to put the bandaids on.

3.  I put Joey down at the WWII Memorial on a sloped concrete path and he immediately took two steps, lost control and fell over, smacking his forehead hard on the pavement.

4.  When we got to the Lincoln Memorial, I took Joey to the bathroom to change him.  After changing his diaper I put him on the floor to walk while I washed my hands and he immediately took two steps, fell over and smacked his forehead, in the same location as before, hard on the tile floor.

5.  No one fell down the steps at the Lincoln Memorial.  This felt like a real accomplishment for us.

Our last stop was Joe's office.  We ate lunch, packed up the remainder of his things,

and said goodbye to his office

and four and a half years at Ropes & Gray.