DC Day 1 - The Mall

Dee and Shandie flew out early Sunday morning, and Bags and Dun left on their honeymoon.  We weren't on the ball enough to make it to church, so we went into the city with Mamo and Papo and the Rob and Annas.  We drove to Union Station and then walked to/down the Mall. 

Dolly had her first experience with leaves on Capitol Hill.  She loved it. 

Where's Waldo?  Find Clarice's face in this picture:

 

 

The gang went on ahead while we let Ever run around and walk leisurely to the botanical garden. 

 

 

We met up with everyone at the botanical garden.  This is a single chrysanthemum plant painstakingly cultivated into a dome with hundreds of perfect blooms, and there was lovely Japanese music going on in the background:

 

 

We headed to the Mall, where we stopped for a snack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was off to the National Gallery:

 

 

We hadn't taken a stroller for Dolly at all on this trip because she generally hates riding in them, so they end up being more of a pain to push around (empty) than anything.  She's gotten heavy enough, though, that it's hard for me to carry her.  Sightseeing was tough.  She did stay pretty well in this little stroller in the National Gallery:   

Clara pushed Ever in that stroller much of the time we were there.  One guard said it's against the rules for a kid to push a stroller, but he made an exception because Clara was being a good driver.

After the National Gallery, we headed down to the Natural History Museum.  Dolly thinks it's super fun to be dragged, so there was a lot of this:

 

 

Pod helped out with her transport:

We went through the sculpture garden on our way and were big fans of this tree: 

 

I don't know that I'd been to the Natural History Museum before.  I thought it was great, but I didn't really get to enjoy much of it.  Dolly was being difficult (and tired, I'm sure), and she didn't want to leave this little area with buttons you can push to make noise, bring up different pictures, etc. 

 
We ate dinner at a BBQ place:

 

Then we walked back to the car (Dolly was dragged) and headed home: