Aaron and Meg in NYC: stranded at the nations capital

In a moment of frustration with Aaron while trying to plan our summer road trip together, I said, “I just wish you could GO to these places ahead of time so you would know what I’m talking about and why I have strong opinions about traveling there with young children.” 

The next day, I received a text with a photo of fight itinerary and the words “hey can you get a sitter this weekend?” 

This is so unlike Aaron and so EXACTLY like Aaron at the same time. Unlike him to make a grand gesture for us to sneak away. Very much like him to be spontaneous and book something without consulting me/the calendar/make arrangements for the children.  He knew that if he had asked me first, I would rattle off 100 appointments and justifications for not going. I most certainly would have talked him out of it.  He knew we needed this time together. Alone.  

The twins’ case is in appeal, which means we will not get an adoption date as soon as we had hoped. This system is broken and frustrating to say the least. But the children are worth every tear we shed and every bit of long suffering and impatient feeling that has vibrates through our bodies.  This time away together offered time for connection and uninterrupted conversation.  

Do we look tired in that first photo? We are. Flights to Newark were delayed for hours and hours and eventually canceled altogether. This left hundreds of people from Bentonville and Jersey (and you could tell very quickly who was from which by whether or not they were yelling😂) stranded at XNA trying to get to New York or surrounding area. 

We opted to be kind and were placed on a flight to Chicago with connection to la guardia. 

The LaGuardia connection had a problem and we ended up on a flight to Washington DC, but after delays for that flight, we got to DC at 1:30am, with a flight to JFK boarding at 5am. We had no luggage, we’d been traveling and sitting in airports for 12 hours, we were tired but had no place to sleep, but a full day planned ahead of us, so we were a bit disappointed that our already-a-whirlwind quick getaway that was 1/3 over before it had even began. 

Soooo we made lemonade! 

What does one do while stranded in DC for a few hours? Go sightseeing! Neither of us have ever been there, so we found an Uber for a $18 and took a self guided Tour de Capital at 2am. There were no lines, no hot min-day sun to scorch us, no one to keep track of or hands to hold but each other’s. It was really great! The Momuments at the Washington Mall were lit up and we had a wonderful time sipping around to see the beautiful works of art and history in the very very early morning hours. 


Washington Monument (we also took a photo of the Jefferson Memorial, but it was too blurry) 

The White House


Lincoln Memorial was much larger than I expected, and we got much closer than I imagined we would be able to. I think there is more security for the artwork at Crystal Bridges than in these places. 

The only other people there were a few group of young adults zipping around on razor scooters. 

A peek at the capital building.








I posed by a pillar to give scale of just how massive they are. These momuments are not tiny! 

We made it back to the airport in time to wait. Haha. We tried to sleep on some chairs for about 90 minutes, then made it back through security, picked up a snickerdoodle hot cocoa (we were freezing) on our way to the gate, and hopped a first class flight to JFK.