Last week, we used the requirement to register our Thai son's adoption at the Thai embassy in Washington, D.C. as an excuse to visit friends on the east coast. :) We had a really great trip and were very excited to see our friends and spend some time sightseeing in D.C.
On Saturday, we flew from El Paso to Atlanta and drove to our friends' house in Georgia. We had a great time visiting them and some other friends previously from El Paso. Robert had a great time walking by the Savannah River, playing in the church nursery, "helping" smoke brisket, ribs and chicken, and boating on Labor Day. Our visit went by way too quickly.
Not sure you can tell, but we were going at a good clip and Robert drove all by himself for several minutes. Good thing it is practically impossible to flip a Pontoon. :)
Robert was very willing to go out on the tube with Grandma Sue (he has new honorary grandparents now), but that changed when they fell off just after this picture. He actually did very well staying calm until we could come back and get them, but he didn't go back out on the tube. He also continually warned other tubers to be careful. :)
On Tuesday, we headed back to Atlanta and flew to D.C. Somewhere along the way we lost Robert's small monkey blanket. Fortunately, he wasn't too attached to it. :) We had some yummy Thai food for dinner and hit the hot tub that evening.
On Wednesday, we explored the zoo in the morning and headed to the Thai Consular Office after lunch to register the adoption. It took less than 20 minutes, mostly signing some papers, then we took some pictures and were done! Robert did very well. He didn't respond when they spoke to him in Thai, but he may have just been shy. After that, we walked back to our hotel and took a break before dinner. It was really hot and humid outside. We had dinner at a tapas type place called Lincoln that is right across from the hotel I stayed in for nearly a month when I was in D.C. for training. Robert did pretty well, mostly entertaining himself by making faces in the mirror across from our table. The restaurant was pretty empty because we had an early dinner so no one was too grossed out when he continued making faces at himself while eating. :)
This is the outside of the Thai Consular Office.
We got a family picture after the registration. Robert didn't smile, but at least he looked at the camera.
On Thursday, we headed to the Natural History Museum. Robert enjoyed seeing the stuffed animals in the mammals hall, but once we told him that they were alive but are dead now he asked, "people shoot them?" Pretty perceptive. He also liked the ocean exhibit. At the insect zoo, we got to watch them feed a tarantula. Robert was pretty interested in that. There was also a little Korea exhibit that was neat to see. After the museum, we headed to lunch and then went to the Air and Space Museum. On the way there, Robert was complaining about being tired and wanted to be carried. As soon as we walked in, he perked up and ran around the rest of the visit looking at all the rockets and planes. He even smiled for pictures, which means he was very happy to be there. :) It was definitely his favorite part of the trip and he did not want to leave even after exploring the whole museum for several hours. On the way back to the hotel, we wanted to stop to see the White House briefly. As soon as we left the museum, Robert realized how tired he was and rode in the ergo. He quickly fell asleep and stayed asleep until we got back to the hotel. We tried to wake him up to see the White House, but he was very out. As soon as he woke up in the hotel, he started asking to see the White House and was upset when he learned he slept through it. :) We had to show him the pictures to prove that we actually already went. After resting our tired legs, we headed to a place for dinner that had pizza called Matchbox. This place won the prize for most kid friendly. They not only had crayons, but they brought out a piece of pizza dough on a plate for Robert to play with. It was like edible play dough. :) They also had this awesome kid's meal that was fruits, vegetables and sliced cheeses. Robert chose that one out of all the options. :) We headed to the hot tub again after we got back to the hotel to help our legs recover and started packing up.
Taking a break after the first museum. We did a ton of walking that day.
Big smiles at the Air and Space Museum.
He especially liked the exhibits he could touch.
He was totally out for the White House, but we have this picture as proof we were there!
Enjoying the pizza dough at the restaurant.
This kids' plate looked so good I was tempted to eat it.
On Friday, we got a taxi and headed to the airport to rent a car for our drive up to Pennsylvania. The rental experience wasn't as nice this time around and after finding problems with two cars, we headed off in the third one only to realize halfway through Maryland that we no longer had our video camera. :( We put in a claim for our lost item and on Monday, we heard from them that they found it and it is now in the mail on its way back to us. :) After we got to our friends' house, we had a yummy lunch, hit the local farmer's market, played at the park, had yummy pre-dinner dessert, made potstickers for dinner from scratch, and had cake to celebrate our friend's birthday. :) After Robert went to bed, we had a great time playing Spades and catching up.
On Saturday, we went to a local chile pepper festival. It was fun, but really hot and humid so we didn't last very long. Then we went to this great donut place where they make them fresh when you order them and then put the toppings on so they are still hot and made to order. :) I really enjoyed the peanut butter cup one and Robert almost finished his powdered donut. After our "healthy" lunch, we headed back to the house. Our friends had a wedding to attend, so we had a much-needed relaxing afternoon watching Finding Nemo and repacking for our trip back home. After Robert went to bed and our friends got back, we stayed up way too late playing Spades and making the most of our short visit. It wasn't until writing this post that I realized we didn't take any pictures of this part of the trip. Next time we definitely need a group picture!
On Sunday, we headed to church with our friends, prepared to leave for the airport afterwards. Their church doesn't have a nursery, but Robert did pretty well sitting in the back with us and looking at some children's books. He enjoyed the worship time. There was a potluck lunch planned for after the service so we ate lunch with our friends and then headed back to D.C. to catch our flight home. Our flight didn't get us in until close to 10pm, so we were pretty tired.
It was a good trip and Robert did very well, but it is still hard with a toddler, especially with as much traveling as we did. In the future, especially when we have two kids, we will probably not try to pack so much into one trip. :) Now we are just trying to recover from our vacation and the cold I picked up partway through.
Yesterday, today and tomorrow are holidays in Korea, so we can't get any news until later this week. Today is probably two weeks since we were submitted to court, so I would expect for some families in our submission group to get court dates at least by next week. We will see! The next family trip should be to Korea!
This post concludes my blog about our Thai adoption. I will keep the blog up and eventually make it into a book for our son, but I will not be adding to it.
Thanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment