A perfect day

...from hell. I mean our was really pretty laughable. So the day started out great...beautiful weather everyone was getting along wonderfully. Lisa and Luke ended up not coming with us what a blessing that turned out to be.

We started out by spending an hour and a half in traffic on 395. Then go to the zoo where there was zero parking in any lot anywhere. Nor was there parking on Connecticut Ave or Adams Morgan.  So I abandoned the zoo idea and decided we were close to the cathedral let's go show the kids how cool that building is. Great parking there by the time we got there everyone was starving so on exceptional day we sat in the garage under national cathedral and ate from our lunchbags. (Not five minutes earlier I had passed by a beautiful park on Rock Creek Parkway  we could have stopped right by the creek and had lunch but at the time I was on a quest to find parking for the zoo.) So we got to the front of the cathedral and discovered that in January they started charging to get in. So we decided to take a few pictures on the outside. It would have cost close to 50 bucks for us all to get in. 

So on to downtown DC we are heading for the capital to look for parking there. After sitting in a ton of traffic we decided to just go walk around the monuments and we found parking near Constitution Avenue. Mind you it took 2 laps around that block before we got into the spot big enough for the van. So I used my only four quarters for a parking meter which turned out was our of orde, a police officer kindly told us that we could not park there. So we wrapped around the block again and found another spot ...quarterless now this time I was able to pay online through some Mobile Pay by Phone app thing. Which took about 10 minutes to set up.

By this time jessica is crying in the back of the van some how she got it this was her fault and that we'd never come back to DC again.  honestly I was in a fine miss laughing about all of this so I'm not sure how she got that ideas.

So we're finally off walking towards Constitution Avenue and the monuments and the weather is just beautiful. Next thing I know Gabe says uh oh mom,  looks I look down at his flip flop is broken. He hobbles across Constitution Avenue and ends up walking in the grass around most of the monument a few minutes later the whole thing blows up and he is now one shoe only.  so we're walking around the World War Two memorial, boo is ducking under a chain gate to get to the side walk doesn't duck deep enough and his her forehead hard on the chain. Glasses off, she is looking glazed.. a few minutes later I am slipping the camera over myr head and my earring pops off...Never did find it. Then the rest of Gabes shoe blows up so he is now walking half barefoot looking for non hot pavement. Time to give up. Back to the van...to get blocked in by a bus driver stopping to get ice cream at a vendor. At least we got in the express lanes and missed the accident ,on 395.  We r at Dicks now. I'm almost afraid to go home I might find that it's blown up while we were out.