Just before Emily woke up I took this picture from our sleeping beauty…

After she woke up there was a lot excitement “Papa, Mama, I wanna go in the white car! Eminy go in the white car! The washroom was broken yesterday! Eminy saw Bambi running” I guess that was her summary of yesterday…

Soon it was time for breakfast with a Banana, Pancakes, A-juice and scrambled eggs. And not to forget the Disney Princess crayons and colouring pages from Patti. The crayons were a big hit, Emily played with them throughout the whole day.

At 8:30 we left the parking lot and after we got the minivan filled with gas we started our 5:33 minute long drive towards Washington DC. Or better to say Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia.

The sights where beautiful and very diverse, high mountains, fog, small rivers, large industrial plants, trees and the best only 8 minutes of traffic.

For lunch we stopped just before we entered the Interstate 70 towards Washington DC, we ended up going to McDonalds. It was a quick stop but we didn’t rush, Emily was doing such a great job staying happy and excited in the car we wanted to give her some time to play. But no after she was done eating she asked: “Can I go back in the car, pleeeaaaaseeee?”

No problem and after getting a coffee at the first Starbucks we found after entering the US we continued for the last 2 hours. The road wasn’t so exciting as the first part but there were still some interesting views and we crossed 2 state borders, State #4 Maryland, State #5 Viriginia!

The most exciting were the last 25 minutes on the George Washington Memorial parkway, this road was covered by trees and we even saw a glimpse of the National Mall and the Pentagon. What we didn’t knew yet was that our hotel is only a 10 minute walk a way from the Pentagon. Needless to say that during preparation for this trip we only focussed on the driving part and not really on the attractions…

After we checked into the Crowne Plaza at Washington National Airport we had some fun in the hotel room!

After jumping on the bed we decided to visit the nearby Fashion Mall at Pentagon City. From there we walked over to the Pentagon.

At the Pentagon there is the monument for the 184 victims from the plane crash on 9/11/2001 9:37am. The memorial is not as impressive in size as the one at ground zero in NYC but this one got to us too. It feels more personal as every victim got its own bench and every bench is placed on a line symbolizing the birth year from the victims. One of the victims was Emily’s age at that time, unbelievable that this has happened to so many innocent people…

From the memorial we walked back to the Shake Shack we saw on the outside of the mall for some unhealthy food and delicious milkshakes and A-juice!

During the 10 minutes walk back the hotel we made a short stop at the Starbucks where Emily worked on another one of their “paintings” with the Disney Princess crayons she got from Patti earlier today.

Back in the hotel room Emily burned the last bit of energy had left with jumping on the bed and then it was bedtime. Somehow we convinced Emily that mama is a good alternative for papa and I have a bed for myself tonight.

Tomorrow there will be no driving as we are going to visit the National Mall and the White House by public transport. Yes, the weather was not great today but tomorrow it will be 31 Celsius and sunny!