Road trip eighth leg

Sunday we rested.  We were going to go to DC after church and walk the national mall between the monuments after church, but Sam ended up getting an ibuprofen stuck in his throat.  He wasn't able to get it up or down, so it dissolved and burned his throat.  He was miserable for hours and Jer and I finally convinced him after 8 or so hours that he needed to drink water to help his throat heal.  He wouldn't believe us until the next morning and kept saying that he was going to starve to death.  Jer stayed with him during church while he tried to get the pill unstuck.  I stayed with him while he napped after church and everyone went to a nearby park.  The next day, he was able to eat and drink.  We headed to DC for the day to try to get in whatever we could.  We drove past several of the prominent buildings and told the kids what they were used for.  After an exciting parking adventure, we started in the Smithsonian American History museum.  I enjoyed that one a lot.  There were things from the Nauvoo temple Sunstone to a cello signed by famous musicians from the 1915s era.  There was the flag flown over for McHenry.  That was cool.  Did you know that it was too big for the lady to sew in her house so she had to rent the empty warehouse across the street to make it in.  

Then we had a lunch of hot dogs from a street vendor and headed off to the Natural History Museum.  That was Seth's favorite.  He kept telling everyone about the dinosaur museum, but it also has an amazing collection of gems and minerals.  Ada stole my camera during that part and came back with a ton of pictures.  It was fun to see what she choose to photograph.  She liked things with lots of color variety and texture.  Sam said that the rainbow colored gems looked like the stones from Avengers.

The Batmobile.  Seth loved that one too.

They got a chance to see how a cotton gin works.

This one was for my brother Seth.  I saw it and yelled, "Sam!  We have to get a picture!"  He scowled at me and didn't want to because it's 'stupid'. It's not so stupid when your Uncle is doing voices... Then he thinks it's funny.

Evelyn was learning about Rosie the Riveter. I actually loved a comment made in Sunday School a couple weeks ago about being riveted.  Not just being fixed, but being immovable.  

I loved these posters.

Sam got really excited when we went through the WWII army area.  He loves playing Battlefield 1942 with Jer and knew most of the weapons.

A piece of the Berlin Wall.... (Just those little bits in the red cases)

A piece of the World Trade Center.  I was surprised at how much my kids knew about 9-11 and not about WWII, but it's understandable that they would learn about the more current events in school.  I know that the older two have learned about the Holocaust. 

Movie props from Wizard of Oz

Our kids read the Wizard of Oz with their cousin Kate while Jer and I were in Germany with my parents a couple years ago.  The girls walked in and immediately got all excited about all the movie props.  I honestly don't think they've actually seen the movie though.  Thanks Kate!

A doll house.

Art installations are my favorite!  I love being able to walk through and touch art.

Avengers

This was one of Ada's pictures that I photobombed.  I showed her the picture later and she just laughed.  She had no idea that I was making faces in her picture.

This reminded me of Giants Causeway.

After the museum, marvelous Emily took Evelyn and Seth home with her littles and Jer and I took the older kids to see the Washington Monument and the Abraham Lincoln Monument.  The Lincoln Memorial definitely has a special spirit about it.  Sam said that it was his favorite thing that we did in DC.  Sam couldn't walk on his crutches that far, so these amazing boys gave him piggy back rides until we found a bike rental place.  We paid $2 to rent a bike for him to sit on while Denys and Henry pushed him the rest of the way up the path.  Jer was worried about my foot and so rented me a bike too.  It was nice to have a break from walking after all day on my foot.  

Henry actually borrowed my camera for this bit.  He took several beautiful landscapes.  

The Jefferson Memorial was under construction so I'm glad we didn't try to plan that one in.

Road trip seventh leg

James and Em took us to see the Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center.  It was so neat.  They had all sorts of Jer's favorite flying machines and my favorite.... the Discovery Space Shuttle.  It was in use from the time I turned 4 until Evelyn turned 4.  That was a fun piece of knowledge.  It was Sam's first outing in a wheelchair and he wasn't too happy about it.  He just wanted to rush up and down the stairs with the other 7 boys.  Ada, Graham and I all took turns pushing him.  Ada enjoyed it, but Sam loved when Graham took over and was requesting to wheel himself around by the end... but then he started trying to run me over as a joke and I just didn't appreciate that.  It's not so fun being on the receiving end of that one.

Graham and Ada

This plane was in the harbor when Pearl Harbor was bombed.  Most of the wear and tear on it was from being left out in the elements.

Evelyn, Ian and Seth were cute little buddies and went everywhere together.

Sam, Graham, Wesley, Henry, Denys, Evelyn, Seth, Ian, Ada, Jer, James, Emily and Duncan

My favorite part of it was the corner that they had a replica of the Wright brothers plane and several similar era planes.  There was one that looked like a very fancy version of the one they fly in Indian Jones and the Last Crusade.

Tiger Jaws.  I love how excited the middle Robertsons get about this one.  Apparently they drew out and painted one of their cars like this.  It sounded like James and Margaret were the main contributors to the project.

ALL the kids wanted to play with Sam's crutches while he was sitting, and if he was out of the wheelchair at all it got absconded by Seth or Evelyn. 

I thought several of them were very beautiful.

They have their restoration workshop open to viewers and you could see several projects in process.  The inside of this one was very pretty.

This was my 'self portrait'. I hadn't been in many of the pictures up to this point, so I tried to take one of Jer and I in the reflection here.  I need to crop it closer, but there we are.

Warning: Gross picture.

So Sam gets super high stress when it comes to physical pain.  He gets that wild animal, uncontrollable expression and won't listen to anything you have to say.  He does mildly better if you explain step by step what is going to happen and there are no surprises.  The instacare doctor not only straight up lied several times, but she wasn't very good at stitches either.  She kept saying she wouldn't give him a shot, and then gave him 4.  Then she said it wouldn't hurt when of course it did.  We ended up having Jer pin his top, I pin his leg and I'd narrate what was happening while Jer had him singing Primary songs.  Taking the stitches out today went better, but man he does not handle surprises like that well.  I felt a little like my emergency preparedness grandma and mom.  When he cut it, we were a little way away from our emergency kit in the van, so I pulled a pad out of my camera case, wrapped it around his ankle and put a sock over it to keep some pressure.... Then Jer and Uncle James took turns carrying him down the path and to the car.