Toddlers and Tiaras

As we head into the final quarter of our stay in DC, our very favorite family of four (other than us obviously) came to visit and remind us exactly what we’re missing.  Ryan, Emelie, Maggie and Alice Nelson came to visit and we couldn’t have been more excited.  Good couple friends are hard to find, but these guys fit us like a glove.  Ryan and I are proud nerds who grew up playing chess and Nintendo Techmo Bowl.  We both married up to two fabulous ladies who have worked at non-profits, for-profits and local government, who sort of qualify as a negative profit.  Brynn and Maggie are super-genius three year olds who are destined to take over the world and their younger siblings are the two cutest kids ever to walk planet Earth.  Don’t argue, I’m totally right.

So with one kid per adult, we planned a man-man defense and packed the schedule.  I rented a Chrysler Town and Country like any good soccer Dad, picked up the crew at 11:30 pm and 6 hours later, the weekend had begun.  Zoo, museums, Mount Vernon, massages, monuments.  We had to take pictures or else we wouldn’t have remembered it.  I’m still a little fuzzy on the details, but here’s my recollection.

When you travel with kids, you bring a purse or wallet full of things for yourself and 100 lbs of gear for your kids.  This includes, but is not limited to: stroller, mid-morning snack, toys, wet wipes, lunch, bottles, formula, mid-afternoon snack, pacifier, diapers and the patience of a saint running a terrier orphanage.  Needless to say, it took a while to get the Walker-Nelson machine moving every morning.  When we did get going though, we had an awesome time.  We started with the zoo on Friday, hit up museums and monuments on the Smithsonian mall on Saturday, Mount Vernon on Sunday and for good measure, George Washington’s gristmill and distillery before heading to the airport.  The kids were champs and we got a number of great pictures and they ran all over Northern Virginia and DC.

The best part of the weekend though was probably when we were home after four exhausted kids had gone to bed.  Ryan introduced me to The Walking Dead, we laughed loudly while watching Modern Family and enjoyed comparing stories of being frustrated, proud and just plain exhausted by our kids every day.  When we had regular Sunday night dinners (sequel coming soon in January 2013), this was always the best part of my week. 

Seeing the Nelsons reminded us of what we’re really missing out here: family and friends.  They let us borrow their daughter to be our practice baby before Brynn came along, they watched Brynn when Jonah was born and we started a Sunday night dinner tradition that’s been going strong since January 2011.  It doesn’t get much better than the Nelsons as far as we’re concerned and we can’t wait to bring the crazy every Sunday night in 2013.