Washington DC Day 1, part 3

Garrett and I tried to leave the memorials around 4. Babies definitely slow things down! Plus, we were tired from walking around everywhere since we couldn't get on the trolley tour. The walking felt good mostly, though, because I've not really had any exercise in 9 months.

My cousin Kent lives in Alexandria, Virginia. My aunt and uncle were visiting, so we were looking forward to all getting together for dinner.Kent had completely renovated his home over the years, and it was fun to see what he'd done. As an architect of extremely modern buildings, coming home to his old house must be a definite cue to shift from work to relaxation. I'd heard stories of how decidedly dated the building had been when he purchased it, but one would never know it now. The beautiful wood floors were preserved, but he'd added touches like opening up a wall and adding a large window. Outside, we saw where my aunt was going to plant flowers. Plus, we saw the products of his summer garden, pumpkins and decorative gourds. (Am I the only member of my family with black thumbs instead of green?) Max slept through the tour.

Kent took us on a walk to historic Alexandria on our way to dinner. We stopped into a seafood/sushi restaurant that he said he'd heard was good but hadn't tried yet. Once inside, I felt a little out of place. Most diners were couples--it was a Saturday night, after all--and children were decidedly absent. We asked for a table. They looked at our stroller and asked us if we had reservations.

Well, I did then.

We soon continued on our way to the place Kent had in mind originally, The Wharf. It was great. They set us in the back where we were out of the way and we had a nice dinner. For some reason, my flash was off, so my pictures were rotten. Luckily, Kent and Uncle Ed are great photographers, so I'm hoping they'll send their pics. Max woke up in time for pictures.

We caught the last trolley that night and rode it back to Kent's. I guess we got to ride a trolley after all!