DC

We had a great time.  It was all that and more, hanging in the District, doing all the touristy things and just taking in the sites and sounds of Foggy Bottom.  So much significance in this town, and so much significance in our visit.  Milestones everywhere.  In addition to just hanging with these two choice individuals, and stumping each other with tangential trivia, we toured the White House, visited the National Archives, tromped around Arlington Cemetery, drank and ate with lightheartedness at a sweet place in Georgetown...and of course visited the monuments, at dusk and dawn. 

Kate and I also went to several of the 19 Smithsonian museum buildings, including the National Museum of American History (love those FLOTUS gowns), the National Museum of Natural History (the Hope diamond is a bit bigger than mine, weighing in at more than 45 carats!), and the Supreme Court, gawked around the Library of Congress (Jefferson building that hosts some of Tom's precious books), and had a private tour of the US Capitol building.  It was all a guaranteed good time because it was time with favorites, talking about our founding fathers and other relatives.  Although I do admit some very sacred time on Sunday as I quietly left the apartment solo, kids sleeping, adorned with my black tights for an early morning run to the Lincoln Memorial, dawn breaking, channeling my best Claire Underwood, firmly focused on this Lincoln-ism as I chugged back up the hill in the middle of the GW campus:  Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.

I have visited my kids, like I have visited DC, many times before, and always I leave a little changed.  We have these relationships, these connections, both historically and also in the here and now, and we see them differently as our focus changes and as we age.  Our past, and the people in it now, shape who we are and influence what we think, both as citizens and as family members, and we are wise to soak it in occasionally, get reacquainted, to better understand and value all of it. 

American patriots, these two...