Cousin Party

Last week Brandon had to attend a training course in West Virginia, the Foreign Affairs Counter Threat course, also known as Crash and Bang.  He got to spend the week learning about exciting things like surveillance, first aid, security, and defensive driving (where the Crash and Bang title comes from - Brandon got to crash cars at the end of the course).  I was technically supposed to go with him, but we didn't have anyone to watch the children, so I stayed here.

And since Brandon was gone for the whole week, my sister came up to visit.  She are I are the only ones with children in my family, and thankfully her children's ages line up neatly with mine, so our children are best friends.  We always try to get together whenever I'm in town so they children can wreak total havoc spend time together, so we decided to take the party up to DC and enjoy a week together without any adult supervision husbands. 

Her children have never been to DC, so we spent the week exploring the sights.  Well, some of them.

We started by meeting them at IKEA because, well, IKEA.  I have never taken six children to IKEA before, and I'm probably never going to do it again.  Four children who have been in the car for five hours + six children who love to see their cousins = a lot of noise, activity, and stroller races.  It was a really good thing that we went on a Monday afternoon when the crowds were pretty low.  The high/low point of the afternoon was when William wouldn't stop screaming while everyone was trying to eat their dinner.  There's a reason I avoid feeding my children in public.

The next day we went to the National Mall.  I started out the morning by scraping the door on my parents' two-year old minivan.  It turns out that seven children in a car is kind of distracting.  My sister and I did the smart thing and reserved spaces at a parking garage before we left, which was a good thing because it turns out that a lot of downtown garages can't park minivans.  Who knew?

The day started out hot and promised thunderstorms in the afternoon, so we dropped by the national archives to see the Constitution and then headed down to the Lincoln Memorial, stopping by the Washington Monument and the WWII memorial.  If you've never been to DC, then you've never appreciated how long a walk it is (according to Google Maps, 1.8 miles) in ninety-plus degree weather with ten children in tow.  It wasn't until the next day that we noticed the Circulator Buses driving around the mall.  Oh well.

We started seeing clouds gathering while eating lunch next to the reflecting pool and so hustled everyone 1.2 miles to the nearest museum, the American History Museum, getting there right as the severe thunderstorm warnings hit.  Everyone was reasonably soaked, but the water dried as we took in a few select exhibits (a gunship, the first lady dresses, and the flag) and made it over to the natural history museum to see the shiny gems and taxidermied animals. 

My sister's children had never ridden a metro before, so we took the metro in to downtown the next day for some more museum time.  They had a great time trying to stand up while the train stopped and started and everyone loved having their own card to pay the fare with.  I managed to lose both Eleanor and Sophia at the natural history museum and we instituted more frequent head counts for the rest of our trip. 

We made a whirlwind trip through part of the art museum where just about everyone we encountered gave us dirty looks and we managed to get out without actually breaking anything (but there was some touching).  Our last stop was the air an space museum, a perennial favorite of all little boys.  Nobody got lost and nothing got broken, so it was a good time.

We spent the final day at the zoo, making it through most of the zoo (a personal record with my children; usually they quit after half) before everyone decided that lunch and swimming would be more fun.  Even though they had walked over three miles that morning, the children played in the pool for over two hours before we made them come in for dinner. 

Friday morning my sister left.  All the children protested that they wanted to spend another week together, but my sister and I had definitely had enough of ten noisy, energetic, occasionally quarrelsome children being stuffed into a three-bedroom apartment.  But it was fun while it lasted!