Girlcation: An Overview

Our first Girlcation trip to Washington DC went great! The train trip was an exciting adventure, the hotel was wonderful, we met great people, and had a wonderful time of girlie togetherness. I'll be filling in more details in later days, but thought I would give a general overview and highlights today.

Monday:

Monday morning, bright and early, we woke up, gathered our things together and headed for the train station. Our train was leaving at 7:30 am, and we were told to be there "before 7". We settled in, ate our breakfast that we had brought along, and enjoyed the trip.

The big girls slept some...

  Lydia, not so much LOL

We arrived in Alexandria, VA about 11:30, and made our way to the metro station on the other side of the train station. From there, we went to Pentagon City, Arlington, VA to get some groceries and meet the shuttle to the hotel.

We were able to check in a little early and head up to our room. The girls were super excited about our hotel room. I didn't take pictures of the room (have to get better about getting pictures of everything), but we had 2 white fluffy beds with lots of pillows. They were especially excited that they didn't have to make their beds while we were there.

After eating lunch and exploring the room (and television) a bit, we headed up to the roof for a swim.

My sleepy, unnapped babe was asleep by 6:30 pm and the big girls were not far behind (which made for an EARLY Tuesday morning!)

Tuesday:

As I said, Tuesday was an early morning. Lyddie was awake by 5am. I wish I had taken a picture of the sunrise between the Lincoln Memorial and the capital building, it was beautiful! and the only sunrise I was awake for while we were there

Tuesday was to be Art Gallery day. Aliana had been looking forward to going to a real art gallery for quite some time.

We had to wait until after 9 am to go, because Metro fare is less expensive at certain times of the day. We ate our breakfast, tidied our room, watched cartoons, then headed out.

After the Art Gallery, we ate our picnic lunch in the sculpture garden next door and the girls cooled thier heels in the fountain. When the wind blew, everyone got sprayed by the fountain water... which would have been fine, had the water not smelled of wet ducks.

After leaving the sculpture garden, I tried to convince the girls that they would like to go to the end of the street and see the Capital building.... um, no. How about the opposite end of the street, and we'll see the Lincoln Memorial and the White House.... nope. We're tired, let's go back to the hotel and go swimming. Ahhh well. We had done a lot of walking.

Metro back to Pentagon city for some dinner shopping and diapers, then caught the shuttle back to the hotel for some rest and swimming.

While swimming on Tuesday, we met the most OBNOXIOUS woman... maybe I'll write about her later... maybe I'll choose to block the memory... truely, she was the only unpleasant person we came across the entire trip.

After swimming and dinner, we watched (more) tv, did a devo (we focused on godly beauty) and went to bed at a more normal time... no sunrise for me on Wednesday LOL

Wednesday:
During the night, Bekah came to my bed and I heard her nose all congested. In the morning, she told me "I need a breathing treatment" UGH!! I listened to her chest, and her breathing was fine, she was just congested, so I gave her some Benedryl and tucked her back in bed.





We had planned to go sightseeing on the Mall this day, but instead, called a "veg day" so that Bekah could recover and enjoy the zoo on Thursday.
We rested, swam, watched tv, rested and swam some more. We ran into that woman again the first time we went to the pool, we left, and went back after lunch and she was no longer there.

Thursday:

Zoo Day!!

Boy did we pick a hot day for the zoo. This was the day that I REALLY wished I had brought my double jogging stroller, instead of borrowing a smaller stroller. Having been through the metros and train, I think I could have folded it and carried it with me, but before we went, I was concerned about the space. Bekah was not right, healthwise, for the rest of the week. While her mobility and stamina have improved greatly, even within the past year, she still wears out easily. She spent most of the zoo trip in the stroller, and I carried Lyddie in the Moby-- not so great on such a hot day, but we made it work.

One of the ways we cut back on expense is by not making food entertainment. We ate a lot of sandwiches and fruit (Lyddie ate a lot of soups, chilis, and beans).

I decided that this would be the perfect evening for dinner out, though. When we got back to Pentegon City, we had Chinese and it was WONDERFUL for a bunch of hot, tired, hungry girlies.

Back at the hotel, we collapsed. No swimming this night. I packed up our things and layed out the next day's clothes, since we were on our way home on Friday. As tired as they were, the girls had a hard time winding down, but everyone was settled in bed by 10.

Friday:

Check out was at 11am. I decided that we would skip swimming this morning, as both Lyddie and Bekah were having skin reactions from the chlorine.

We finished packing our things and headed out at 11 on our journey to the train station.

The plan had been to find a park to play at until about 3:30-- the map showed one at the end of the road on the water front. This turned out to be a 100 degree day. No day for playing at a park.
We sat at the station and ate our lunch. When the girls went for  a potty break, I looked through my Alexandria guide for something inside to do, and found an ice cream shop. OH, we'll go there, that will kill an hour or so... we only made it about 2 blocks in the heat before heading back to the train station. I checked the vending machine room and found an ICE CREAM MACHINE!! WOOHOO!!!

We sat and had a frozen treat and decided to just spend the afternoon at the train station. It really wasn't so bad. We met lots of people going lots of places, half of the room was very open, and the big girls were able to run about, and the floor was checked black and white, so there was lots of hopscotch.

Our train was about 1/2 an hour late, but we made it out onto the platform, and were immediately happy with our choice to stay in the air conditioned train station all afternoon! Lyddie fell asleep as soon as we went outside, so here I am with big backpack (containing all of our clothes), sleeping toddler/babe on my shoulder, folded stroller in my other hand, and trying to hang on to Bekah's hand to get down the platform to the open door (Aliana carried the diaper bag and snack bag).

The trip back home went well. We chatted with our neighbors, and the big girls played games on my cell phone.

There were some delays, and we were an hour later than we were supposed to be getting home. We got off the train and into a storm. After waiting out the winds in the station for about an hour, we headed home and collapsed in our own beds!

There were a few bumps, but in all, our Girlcation was an amzaing experience. We are already looking forward to our NEXT girlcation-- not sure where we're headed next time.