DC continued

As I was saying, we went and saw the sights of DC. You'll notice a gray, overcast sky in all our pictures. The day before we got there was sunny and 60 degrees. The same can be said of the day we left. Oh well.

Here I am in front of the Washington Monument. I visited this in 8th grade, and so I was able to be the tour guide and tell Kevin about how when they were making it, they had to stop for some war or something, and then when they resumed they used marble from a different quarry, or it had changed color or something. But you can see it part-way up.
Kevin thanked me profusely for such insight. It wouldn't have been obvious otherwise. I wear Kevin's law school shirt to feel smart.

And here is Kevin in front of the WWII memorial that I wrote about yesterday. Isn't it beautiful!
After painting the town red (albeit a dreary, grayish red), we headed back to our friends' house. We were staying with our friends Andrea and Dave, who are both going to school in DC. They are awesome not only for letting us stay at their casa, but they took us to and from the airport, put up with a tired baby who didn't sleep through the night, and found some really cool things for us to do.

Penny was marvelous for the first couple days. Our flight from Seattle left super early, and we had to pull Penny out of bed at 4:00 AM. I wasn't looking forward to starting our trip that way. But she stayed awake until the first leg of the flight, where she took a 45-minute power nap. Then on the final leg of the flight, she took another power nap. But all the rest of the day, she was bright and cheery. In fact, she didn't even cry on the plane but was giggling and entertaining everyone. Maybe we should wake her up at 4:00 AM more often! Ha ha ha, um, no.

Sleep-deprived-but-happy baby!

The second day was when we toured around, and Penny stayed awake and cheery for most of that. There were no strollers allowed in the museum, so Kevin and I took turns carrying her. Eventually she fell asleep on my shoulder for another 45-minute power nap. Then she was good the rest of the day. Amazing!

That night we went to dinner with Andrea and Dave. We went to a Moroccan restaurant with amazing lamb, couscous, chicken shawarma, and this amazing sweet and savory meat pastry thing. Plus there was a belly dancer. She was pretty good, I guess, but she got nothing on Penny's belly.

On Sunday, we all went to the Chinese branch for church. Then in the evening, Andrea and Dave invited some friends from their ward over who were in the Foreign Service. He was working in the same area Kevin will be, and they had a couple young kids, so it was awesome to be able to talk about their experiences and what they learned and how they managed living overseas with little kids. At that point, we were still talking hypothetically, but it was so valuable to talk to them now that it's actually going to happen.

On Monday was Kevin's exam. I think I'll ask him to write a guest entry and talk about his experience. Penny and I just took it easy that day. After her amazing feat of going several days without adequate sleep, I didn't want to push her any more.

We did take an outing to the nearby park, where Penny learned how the swings work.

At first she was happy but not terribly comfortable with them.Then she got used to the idea and loved her adventure at the swings.