Washington DC

To say this trip was a challenge would be the understatement of the century. I had an idea of what it would be like going into it but I had no idea how exhausting and stressful it would be.
We decided to take the trip after my brother qualified for a National fishing tournament on the FLW circuit. My parents, Todd and I and the kids all rented a van and drove while my brother had to drive down before us to get ready for the tournament.
Other than the winding roads through the mountains of West Virginia the drive really wasn't that bad. We broke it up into two days so as not to be as stressful on the kids. I'm really glad we did because after 4 or 5 hours on the road they were about done.
My parents were a big help on the drive, they kept the babies happy.

The problem started when we got to DC. Evan turned into a complete beast. I've never seen him like this. Extremely grouchy, whiny, aggressive, hyper - you name a bad attribute of a toddler and he was the epitome of it. I tried to cut him some slack because he was out of his routine, tired and just seemed to not be himself. He would have an extreme tantrum over absolutely nothing and he even started hitting and kicking us during these tantrums. He wouldn't eat hardly anything. He was forced far to often to sit in a restaurant, stroller or a car. The boy barely had any opportunities to play or even watch one of his movies that he has become accustom to watching daily.

Staying at a hotel we were forced to have most meals in restaurants and while I usually love a good meal out but I came to dread the thought of it. He would want to be out of his seat the entire time, running around, getting in peoples way, crawling under tables...
So by the end of everyday I had spent the majority of the day completely stressing out over everything, handling tantrums, trying to take care of Erin (who was an angel by the way), keeping my parents happy and trying to not take everything out on Todd. Then it would be bedtime and it would be the worst part of the day. Evan would flip out and throw a massive tantrum until he finally became too exhausted and passed out. All the while Erin was waking up because Evan wouldn't keep quiet. Many many times during the week I would have both kids screaming and crying and I just wanted to run out of the room and allow myself the breakdown I deserved.
But I persevered :) We persevered. The stress of the week really showed on Todd, a man who never seems to stress about anything. Thank goodness for his patience or I would've just booked a flight home 2 days into the trip.

All that said we did see some amazing things and enjoyed the little amount of sightseeing we were able to do.

The White House

The Vietnam Memorial.

The World War II Memorial was really gorgeous.

And after a very long day of walking around it felt amazing to dip our feet in. There were tons of people doing the same otherwise I would've felt a bit weird about it. Evan almost went in shoes and all until I made him take them off.

The Lincoln Memorial

I was really looking forward to seeing the big reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial but it was closed down due to construction.

Sad face.

We got to see some of my brothers weigh ins and Evan really enjoyed all the fishing activities.

He got 23rd - awesome job!

Erin liked the weigh ins, she's a people watcher just like her mama.

She also likes hotel beds, and loves to just roll all over them.

I know now that I expected way too much from the kids, specifically Evan during the trip. He missed his comforts of home and it really showed in his behavior all week. I think we'll stick to nice relaxing beach vacations from now on. Which is fine by me!