Celebrating My Parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary-Day One-Washington D.C.

Friday Tate and I boarded a plane headed to Washington D.C. to start our journey to Virginia to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary.  They were married 50 years on April 24, 1965 in Brooklyn, New York at this church...

They honeymooned in Washington, D.C.

Last summer, my dad told my sisters and I that he wanted to go back to Hampton to celebrate their 50th anniversary with dinner with our family and to visit their old stomping grounds.  My parents met in Hampton when they were young teenagers and dated for a bit.  My mom moved to New York City to attend college and live with her mother (she was raised by her aunt after the age of 7 or 8 for a variety of reasons).  My parents reconnected when my mother returned to Virginia one weekend :).

That's when their romance began anew...the rest is history.

Initially my dad planned to take my mom back to DC as well, but those plans didn't work out for them, so they and Lindsey flew off to Virginia Wednesday, April 22nd, and Tate and I joined them on the east coast that Friday, the 24th.

We landed in Washington, D.C. and to make the weekend even more special, Christian joined us from Germany. :)  We had not seen him in 3 years.  Three long years.  When he learned of our plans for the anniversary and our intention to be in D.C. he took it upon himself to be able to join us for the weekend.  I could not have been more surprised;  it really touched me that he would do this for me, for Tate and for my parents.  Because his coming was as much about my parents and Tate as it was our relationship.  He only had a few days to spare, and the plan was he'd arrive in D.C. on Thursday, join us Friday and fly home on Monday.   It turned out to be cheaper to fly into NYC, catch a quick flight to DC and fly home from DC.  Then he got a job interview with a German based company who has NYC offices so they flew him over a few days prior to his original flight.

So he was here.  And it was amazing.   I'll save my feelings about that for another post.  But they are all happy feelings of joy, love and reconnecting.  We have something really special between us, and we both know it.  We've greatly disappointed one another, hurt one another and needed a lot of space to get to the place we are today.  I don't have any expectation that things will be easy from here on out, but I know they will be better as long as we are honest and give one another the space we need when necessary.

He met us at the airport when we arrived, and we climbed into the shuttle to head off to our hotel.  Tate was so cute and shy with Christian as I expected, and Christian was so gracious and understanding.  Tate had been really excited to see Daddy Christian, but I wasn't surprised by him...it takes him a day or so to warm up to people.

We got into our hotel room, rested a bit while Tate ate the lunch I had packed for him, then we headed out to see some sights.  The only thing I really wanted to do while we were in D.C. was see the White House.  I wanted Tate to see the White House while Barack Obama was president.  It was extremely important to me for Tate to see it while a black man was sitting president.  So that's what we did...we climbed into a cab and headed off to the White House!

Tate has never been one to enjoy 'museums'..the White House was no different.  I had been telling him for weeks we were going to see the house where President Obama lives, and he was excited.  Well that excitement lasted all of 5 minutes;  as soon as he had his fill he turned to me and asked "Are we going to get back in the cab now and go back to the hotel? I want to get in the cab."

Ummm, no little boy.  We have lots more to see.  And tons more walking to do! :)

We made our way around the White House to try to see it from the other side, but it was blocked off.  As we were standing there, a motorcade exited the White House.  I was super excited, sure it was the president...friends later assured me it most likely wasn't since we only saw large black SUVs, but I'm going to choose to believe I saw President Obama!

We walked past the Washington Monument toward the World War II Memorial which is just breathtakingly beautiful.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day...temps in the low 50s, clear blue skies...just beautiful for a leisurely walk along the mall.  We made our way to the Korean War Memorial.  I had not been to this memorial before, but I remembered being told about the shadows of the 19 men creating 38 men in honor of the 38th parallel.  Now I didn't know what any of that meant from my confused memory, but I knew it was important.  Luckily I ran into a park tour guide and asked her to explain what I was recalling.

North Korea and South Korea are separated by the 38th parallel.  There are 19 servicemen represented on the grounds of the memorial.  On clear days, when the sun hits the servicemen they reflect on the granite (marble?) wall beside them and one can then see 38 servicemen in the reflection.  Lucky for us Friday was one of those most perfect days and the 38 men were visible.

Look closely and you can see them...not the pictures in the marble, but the figures seen in my photos above.

We then walked over to the Lincoln Memorial.  I absolutely love his memorial as well, and am always overwhelmed by emotion when I see his statue in the memorial.

Though we rode the elevator up to the memorial :), we walked down the steps to go over to the Vietnam War Memorial.

The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial was next.  It's so much quieter when you walk along the memorial wall, so much quieter.  It is truly like hallowed ground.  I am always sure to see the wall along with the Three Servicemen and Vietnam Women's Memorial Statues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was just a lovely, lovely day.  And now we let Tate get in a cab, and we headed back to the hotel. :)

We relaxed for just a moment, then we had 5:30 dinner reservations at The Old Ebbitt Grill.  Yum!  In addition, we were meeting a couple of SMCs that I met through the SMC Forum!  I was so excited!  I've made some really good friends via the SMC national group, most of whom I've never met, but connect with as friends.  We arrived and met Amy and Rowan!  We got seated, and the kids were so cutely shy together initially.  After 15 -20 minutes they were just fine, having a great time!  Dinner was lovely and delicious!  And it was so great to meet Amy and Christina! 

You want me to play with her???

Still miles apart!!



Once they started this game on their own the ice was broken!

 

Eating together!

 

 

Becoming buds!!!

 

 
  

Now they are buddies!



Such good buddies that Tate wanted to read Rowan one of his new books!



 
 

Getting two kids to be still for a picture...so.much.work.

 Amy was so kind...she drove us back to our  hotel where we crashed almost immediately!

This was one of my most favorite days this year!!!