Day 9--Day of Rest/Bike Tour

Sunday was a nice, relaxing day for us.  Ted make the whole crew whole wheat pancakes with strawberries.  (Bob did his part by microwaving scads of turkey bacon, even going so far as to finish the job in the basement when the circuits kept blowing in the kitchen!)  The service at the B's church didn't start until 10:30, so we had plenty of time to enjoy visiting and breakfast. 

The service was very nice--lots of hymns, which is a nice change of pace from what we typically do at Faircreek.  I do miss singing hymns frequently...we get one thrown in every now and then, but somehow it has to be "jazzed up" or made "contemporary" somehow, LOL.  I do like the variety of music we get, but now and then I do feel nostalgic for the good ol' hymns that I grew up singing.  Anyway, it was nice to be in church again, and the kids did quite well visiting a new place. 

In the afternoon Claire stuffed us again with a spaghetti dinner, after which Lucan and I took a nap.  Ahhh!  Then it was time for a much-anticipated event: the Bike'N'Roll Monuments@Nite tour!  Ever since Sarah B had told me about the tour, which was a highlight for her whole family when they visited D.C., I had been interested in checking it out.  When I finally sat down to finalize plans for our trip, I mentioned it to the kids, who responded with a hearty YES!!  We decided it would be best to leave Kenna and Lucan with the B family, and they (our kids) were pretty happy with that decision!  (As I mentioned in a previous post, Kenna has been having a blast with Anna, Grace, and Faith!)

We were a bit concerned about the weather--clouds had rolled in, and it had been raining in the afternoon.  But God really smiled on us!  While it did sprinkle just a bit in the beginning and toward the very end of the tour, the evening was absolutely gorgeous, quite cool, which was a welcome change from the heat of the day before.  Tobin actually borrowed Ted's sweatshirt for the beginning of the tour, so if you view the pictures on Facebook, you'll see him in a large black shirt.  He warmed up quickly, though, and passed the sweatshirt on to me when he got tired of wearing it!

Here's what all we got to stop and see on our tour, with our guide giving us interesting factoids about each place before we could (in most places) explore for a bit:

• The Washington Monument
• The White House
• The World War II Memorial
• The Albert Einstein Memorial
• The Vietnam Memorial
• The Korean War Memorial
• The Lincoln Memorial
• The FDR Memorial
• The Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Seeing the monuments and memorials by bicycle was definitely the way to go!  We've done this tour (or close to it) on foot before--NOT as fun, trust me!  The kids really enjoyed getting to run around and see everything during the 10 minutes or so we were stopped at each place, and then we hopped back on our bikes and continued on.  There were 3 other adults in our tour group, so it was a nice, small group.  (They can take up to 15 at a time.)

All in all, it was a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour.  (Sorry, couldn't resist.)  All of us have decided that it was definitely a highlight of our trip so far!  We were very thankful that Bob and Claire didn't mind us leaving the little ones at their house, as it was a much more enjoyable experience for all of us that way.  So, if you're ever in D.C., we highly recommend this tour!  It was well worth the money we splurged on it.  Since so much of the rest of our vacation has revolved around free or greatly reduced-priced activities, we felt it was worth spending a little more on this, and we're glad we did!