Epic East Coast Trip | Washington DC

Epic East Coast Trip | Washington DC

Time to share our last part of our epic East Coast trip! The first full week was filled with fun trips first to Boston and then NYC. Our last stop before heading home was to DC. We started the trip out with another train ride from NYC to DC. We took another Amtrak train out of Penn Station and y’all, I have never been so confused about how to get on a mode of transportation in my life. The signage to get through Penn Station made no sense and then when we finally got to the Amtrak location, we didn’t see where our train was supposed to leave from. Come to find out, they don’t normally share the platform until 10 minutes before the train is supposed to leave, so people are just walking around waiting and then when the platform pops up on the screen, people rush to that platform entrance to take an escalator down to the platform. It’s a stinking madhouse! Boston wasn’t a madhouse, but there wasn’t really anything clear to explain where we had to go either. Luckily we got to both city train stations early so that we could figure this stuff out ahead of time and not miss our trains. Other than that, our train experiences this trip were pretty easy and lots of fun!

We stayed with our friends, Anna and Stephen, in DC. They had just moved up there two weeks prior from San Antonio, so we figured, “why not visit them as they are moving in and getting to know a new city!” They were gracious hosts and in fact, already had their whole house unpacked! There were NO boxes anywhere- it was like they had been living there for months! I was super impressed.

Our first full day in DC was spent touring the downtown area around the National Mall. We decided that the Natural History Museum and the Air and Space Museum would be good for Levi to check out. I contacted a friend of mine, Michelle, who lives in Virginia about an hour and a half from DC to see if she might want to come and join us for the day. Well luck would have it that she was already planning a day trip THAT day out to DC! She had bought her train tickets to take her son (who also loves trains) to ride into the city and spend the day there! It could not have worked out better, especially since Anna and Stephen were working that Friday. We had a blast at the two museums. Levi’s favorite of all of it was the Air and Space Museum. He got to play with a lot of really cool hands of stuff in the kids area. We played in there for over an hour and could have stayed longer. At the end of the day, he was absolutely exhausted, so much so that he fell asleep on my back at the Metro station! He hasn’t done that in years. He slept at least 45 minutes on my back!

The next day, we spent the day with Anna and Stephen and their kiddos and just had a relaxing day. We went to my new favorite donut place called Duck Donuts. Come to find out they have one in Alpharetta and just opened another in Buckhead. If you like cake donuts that are hot with special toppings, and I mean who doesn’t, you HAVE to go to Duck Donuts. Hopefully there is one near you! We took the kiddos to the park and just hung out around the house the rest of the day. It was very relaxing and much needed after our “go-go-go” days of the trip!

We left on a Sunday to head home, but didn’t have a flight until later that afternoon, so we took the kids to the Smithsonian Zoo. Gotta love all of these free museums we got to go to! Levi LOVED the panda hat they gave them when we first came in. In fact, he still wears it around the house, almost nightly. For some reason he thinks it’s hilarious to have us close our eyes and he says “surprise! It’s a panda surprise!” I don’t get it, but it’s really funny how much he’s attached himself to that hat from the zoo! Glad I got a replacement one on the way after he had ripped it while we were there.

This trip was very busy going to three cities in one week, but we had such a great time! I loved getting to visit with family and friends and get to see some really great cities. This is definitely a trip we will have to repeat again in the future, and we probably can seeing as we have friends and family in each of these amazing cities!

 They had this really cool interactive exhibit at the Natural History Museum where the kids got to touch and look at bugs, rocks, fossils, and so much more! He got to look at things under a microscope and had a blast doing it!  Y’all, I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE cockroaches. Have I mentioned how much I hate cockroaches???? I want to vomit every time I see this picture; but this boy wanted to hold the bugs they had for the kids to look at and touch. ICK!So much better. I can definitely do a grasshopper. He could have played with this for an hour if we let him. He loved watching the gears move around and turn.  Thanks Michelle for the sweet picture of Joshua and me 🙂 My super exhausted boy. He was out!! This was while we waited an hour for our Metro train. There was an accident on the line and we had two wait an extra two hours downtown to get back to Anna and Stephen’s house. Time to place an order at Duck Donuts!  Time for the zoo! See the panda hat???  This kid and his obsession with misters. We loves them at Six Flags and had to get into this one as well! This is why his hat ripped. It got wet and then ripped. I had to get a new one before we walked out of the zoo. He would have been so upset otherwise. He even wore this through the airport and all of the way home!