D.C.

We were lucky enough to be close to D.C. and my brother found a great hotel in Bethesda for a night, so after the baby blessing we stayed and went to the Washington D.C. temple.  There is a visitor's center there and for Christmas they decorate the trees similar to temple square in SLC, just not as big.  It was beautiful!  The Washington D.C. temple is one of the most impressive, gorgeous buildings I have ever seen.  Breathtaking. 

After visiting the temple, the kids were hungry, so we stopped at McD's.  Miss Lilly happened to get some drink down 'the wrong pipe' and was coughing.  And, of course, threw up all over the car, her pants, the car seat ... seriously it isn't a Yorgason gathering unless somebody is throwing up (a tradition from childhood family trips with siblings ... and quickly becoming a Flora tradition as well, hyper-gag reflex or something)  So, after pulling over and cleaning up puke in front of a random stranger's home we spent the evening trying to clean it out of the only pair of pants I'd brought for Miss Lilly, her car seat and the car floor.  I've decided I need to pack carpet cleaner and paper towels in my emergency kit.

The next morning, after J.D. scrubbed the car down and Miss Lilly's pants had dried, we got on the Metro in Bethesda and headed toward D.C.  Very cool - never been on a Subway, and this was impressive.  Just the size of the terminals is incredible.  There was a really long, high escalator we had to ride down into the terminal on that Master S basically sat down on because of his heights phobia - but really by the time we headed home, we'd been on so many that I think that fear was conquered.  He did awesome!  On the way home the Metro was fairly busy and there was a stop we had to change trains - I was pretty careful about everybody holding hand, except at this particular spot and for a moment I couldn't find Big D.  I think my heart stopped and I yelled his name.  Miss Lilly, thankfully had been paying attention and saw him go the other direction following another man that looked like his dad and she ran over to him and brought him back to our group.  We also got to witness a very angry man yell obscenities repeatedly at another man - we decided to wait for the next train instead of getting on with them ... so grateful that my daily routine does not include a big city or a Subway!

Between my brother and his wife and our family we had 7 kids 10 and under ... a 2 month old baby in a front pack carrier on my brother, a 20 month old in a stroller, two crazy boys, two crazy girls with an American girl doll in tow and Master S with 4 adults.  Yes, people looked at us, wondered about us and yes, we just smiled and laughed!  The kids were actually really good, they loved the Metro, and D.C., while cold, wasn't bitterly cold like it can be.  We saw a lot of the Natural History Museum (awesome), a little bit of the Air and Space museum (mostly the biggest McDonald's I've ever seen when we stopped for lunch and Kyle really wanted to see the original model of the Starship Enterprise ... yes, we watch(ed) Star Trek as kids, um - some of us as adults).  We walked the National Mall and saw the Capitol building, the White House and the Washington Memorial with a glimpse of the WWII memorial and the Lincoln memorial.  Someday we'll go back and see more - it was just amazing.  There is so much to see and do, my brother and his wife did a great job of introducing us to D.C. and despite lots of walking the kids loved it!  I can't wait to go back and see more with them, or maybe New York next time, or Philadelphia, or Hershey, PA, or ... Really, Washington D.C. was amazing - made me appreciate more what an incredible country the United States is and the government system that we are blessed to have.