Well, after a long hiatus, we’re finally returning to the blog, much encouraged by the comments made after that email invitation was sent out a few days ago. Thank you!
By the way, why is it always “back east” and “out west?” Perhaps it has something to do with history, but I’ll leave that for another entry.
Beckoned by Matt’s wedding, the Alaska Wargos (or would that be Wargoes?) made the trek to DC for his sealing. We felt somewhat crazy at first for agreeing to make the drive from DC to Ohio and then to Connecticut, with Adam and Seth in tow. But we threw all caution and sensibility to the wind and did it anyway. The boys, as always, amazed us and travelled very well. Personally, I attribute this to two factors: 1) setting my standards low in the first place, and 2) DVD players in the car. While I vow never to have them in my personal automobiles, they were gold in my mom’s van driving through Pennsylvania.
Before Uncle Matt’s big day, though, we spent two days taking in the sights around DC. We had one guiding question going in to this: What would a 4-year-old want to see? Our answer came quickly (actually, it came the day Matt told us he was getting sealed in the Washington temple): rockets, dinosaurs, and animals. For rockets, the Air and Space Museum, for dinosaurs, the Natural History Museum, and for animals, the National Zoo (living ones) and the Natural History Museum (dead ones).
Adam also got a huge kick out of riding the Metro. This was an unexpected benefit of the DC trip.
Yes, those are matching outfits on Adam and Seth. Not only did we do that for safety and to be cute, but our summer wardrobe is very limited and the boys really don’t have too many shorts. C’mon, we live in Alaska…
On a more personal note, this was perhaps the hardest part of the trip for me. When I go to museums, I like to take my time and learn, thus fulfilling the entire mission of the Smithsonian’s existence. We had a guiding principal in our museum visits, though, and it was to keep the visit on the timetable of a four-year-old. With most four-year-olds being largely illiterate, you can figure out the pace of our visits.
If you’ve visited the Air and Space Museum, you know that many of the coolest things in the museum are hanging from the ceiling. Seth noticed them, and spent a good deal of time looking up.
We planned on two museums per day, tops. One probably would have been enough. By the time we were through with the Air and Space, and had made our way across the Mall to Natural History (with a short stop in the Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden for lunch), Adam was pretty wiped out, and Seth had had enough of his stroller.
Still, Seth made time to share a meal with one of our primate ancestors.
What a great day! It was so much fun that Adam wanted it to continue, and did his best to see that it did, long after the rest of us had decided that it was time to sleep. While we don’t have any pictures from that part of the day, its images will stay with us for a long, long time.
