Last visit to Dumbarton

The last visit up to Dumbarton was a hard one, too. Our family family loved going up to wander through the gardens, and we went many times during, roughly, three seasons. It is such a beautiful place. Brad had a few final things to clean out of his cubicle (and that he needed to haul in the van, rather than carry in his backpack on his scooter), so we all went to "help" and then go for a last stroll.

Watching for Peter Rabbit and friends

We saw several engagement photo shoots during visits to Dumbarton. It makes total sense, right?

This pond froze over, which would have made for a really beautiful picture, except that another family was letting their kids throw all kinds of things onto the top of the ice.

I think this last visit was the first time I spotted this blue gate. It really is like a secret garden where you can just unexpectedly find treasures.

A final farewell. What great memories we made there!

And just for fun, here are a couple shots of the surrounding Georgetown houses. These are just across the street from the main gate in the gardens.

Aren't they beautiful?

There's a really good chance I'll do another post just of my favorite pictures from Dumbarton. Consider yourself warned, friends.

Swansong at the Zoo

Oh man. That last trip to the zoo was a hard one. It became such a beloved fixture in our life that saying goodbye to one of our weekly rhythms was very sad for us. We went on a Saturday so that Brad could join us. It was cold and gray, but we managed to have fun anyway.

Lions...

Tigers...

(here's a close up)

...and...triceratops? Oh my...

There's the bear!

Lots of bears on this trail. Not real ones...but lots of signs with bears on them.

This is a fun little walk that displays different Smokey the Bear campaigns from over the years.

Our favorite sea lions.

Snack break

The Asia trail was, perhaps, where we spent the most amount of time over the course of our time in DC.

The girls wanted to make purchases from the many gift shops every time we visited, but we held off until the end of our time, giving them lots of time to really think about what they wanted to spend their money on. These were their choices: a tiger and a wallaby. These choices were heavily influenced by their love of Winnie the Pooh.

I don't know that I've ever posted a picture of this station in the Giant Panda house. There are scientists that work here and monitor the pandas. They're behind a glass wall, but I have NO idea how they manage to get any work done with the masses of people that cycle through.

Daytime view of Zoo Light exhibits. Claire wanted to pose with Pascal (from Tangled)

And Lily wanted to pose with the tigers with her tiger.

The girls always loved this prairie dog habitat.

A few of them came out to say hi.

We decided to use our member discount and eat lunch at the zoo as a treat. And also because we were close enough to moving back home that we were already starting to empty the fridge. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of it all. We made sure to wear our matching koala shirts, in part for our trip to the zoo (although there aren't any koalas there...it's just a nod to the animal kingdom) and in part because we were having a goodbye supper with the Crawfords, who live in Australia.

It was a bittersweet farewell, and we were all a little bummed to say goodbye. I tried to snap a few pictures of our drive home, as it was one of our most traveled paths.

This isn't the main Zoo sign at the entrance, but it was the one I could grab a picture of. One of my few regrets from our semester in DC is that I didn't manage to get a family picture in front of the entrance. I plan to take the girls back one day and get one. I don't care how old they are at the time.

Views on Connecticut Avenue while driving home.

21st Street on the way to our alleyway.

This is the Philips Collection (a famous art museum) that was literally across the street from our alley.

And then back home with our critters. 

I have a lot of nostalgia about the National Zoo. We spent time there as a family, lots of visits with friends and visitors, and I spent nearly countless mornings there just me and the girls. I have so many sweet memories of chatting with them about the animals and seeing it all through the excited eyes of little children. We had a system of how we packed for the zoo and made our way through the zoo. I said a lot of "yeses" to random requests at the zoo, and we learned so much together. I'll always hold those memories as some of my favorite ones of my girls and me. It was most definitely a gift.

Wherein we ride the metro for fun

One of our very last days in the District (sometime in the last week but I can't remember which day), I decided that instead of taking the girls to a museum, which is what I wanted to do, I decided to take them for a metro ride out to the airport. 

I know that doesn't sound exciting, but I just knew they would love it. I'd been out to the the airport via metro several times, but they hadn't. I wanted to take them because the metro goes above ground for a while when you go that direction (other lines probably do the same, but I knew about this one and how easy it was to navigate). Claire was too little when we lived in Boston to remember taking the T (the green line is largely above-ground, and we lived on the green line), but she LOVED it as a baby, and I knew that all three of them would love this, too. And, boy, did they!

Brynnie wanted to hang on, too.

When I say that my children are extroverts, I could not possibly stress that enough. They sat by this lady for all of THREE MINUTES and had her showing them pictures of her dog and learning all about him.

And Lily excitedly told her all kinds of things, too. Who even knows? Our new friend's train came before ours, but she told me that chatting with the girls made her day. Which made my day.

This picture just kills me with the cuteness.

The ride out to the airport goes through two or three Pentagon stops, so all manner of military personnel get on and off for a while, and let me tell you: they were thoroughly tickled watching the girls squeal with delight of going above ground AND over the Potomac. It was so cute.

We arrived at the airport, switched platforms, and waited on our train to take us right back. I passed out snacks, and we watched they different kinds of travelers who joined us from the airport. 

We switched sides of the train so we could see the sights on the other side of the tracks, if you will. They were just as excited and delighted on the way back, as well. Both of the big girls kept telling me how much fun they were having and how much they were enjoying it...so I decided to make an extra stop on the way home and take them to see the gate and fun crosswalks in Chinatown.

I very much cannot handle this picture. They posed themselves and I melted.

When we got back to Dupont, they were very tired. And ready for lunch. We got back just before we had some serious breakdowns. 

It was really such a good day. The girls talked about it for hours and thanked me repeatedly. I'm so glad I cleared off my museum to-do list and did the things that they enjoyed so much. They're growing up so fast, and I will miss the days when metro rides over the river are the stuff dreams are made of. I'll never regret spending our morning that way.