I planned a small overnight trip to D.C. as a surprise to my kiddos AND to Danny. Even though I was at the Whitehouse already on the 12th, I knew that my boys would enjoy a tour as well. I emailed my house of representatives back in October and requested a tour in December. After chatting with a friend who stayed near D.C. at the Gaylord....I knew I wanted to combine these two and make it an overnight thing. The only problem is that you don't hear if you get a tour until 2-3 weeks beforehand. Once I got the email that first week in December that we got in, I started planning. First we were to go to the Whitehouse, next we were going to walk the mall and see all of the memorials (it had been 10 years since we did it last), after lunch we were going to head to the Gaylord at National Harbor. At the Gaylord, we would go to ICE, go iceskating, swim at the pool, complete a hotel scavenger hunt, let Embry ride the train and carousal, see Santa, and make gingerbread cookies. The hotel also had a free light show and lots of restaurants to eat at. I was so excited to surprise them and I pulled it off. We had a wonderful time!
In the Whitehouse.
When there are long lines to make you stand still, you take pictures.
We were so thankful for the warm weather we had this day! We were able to walk to every memorial! First stop was the World War II memorial.
Silly girl
Headed towards the Lincoln Memorial
Waiting on Evan to use the restroom.
Standing where Martin Luther King Jr. said his speech.
Vietnam Memorial
Korean War Memorial
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
FDR Memorial
Thomas Jefferson Memorial
After checking in at the Gaylord, we went to eat at Granite City outside of the hotel. This famous statue was right by the restaurant, so we of course had to reenact it!
Riding the carousel and train at the hotel
Mommy, I saw Santa for the 5th time!!
Evan and Eli went ice skating for the first time in their lives. Evan held onto the wall for awhile, but then took off pretty quickly. Eli held onto the wall nearly the whole time, but became brave near the end of the night.
Gingerbread cookie making
The Christmas Light show
The next morning after breakfast, we went to ICE. It was 9 degrees inside this globe, so we were given coats to wear on top of our coats...hence why we make look like Oompa Loompa's in these pictures. ICE was so neat! I had never seen colored ice sculptures before! It was beautiful!
An ice slide!
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