Hitting the Town

We woke up this morning bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on the day. This sentiment was promptly obliterated by sentiments of the  "Mom, please for ________'s sake, stop taking pictures" variety:

It was looking like a gorgeous day, so we decided to hop on the subway and head north toward the Park. "Really, Mom, put the _______ camera away"

All was quickly forgiven and forgotten when they got to climb on rocks:

And then we were fortunate enough to stumble upon another beautiful iteration of Bethesda. We do love our hometown, but this place, Bethesda Fountain and Terrace in Central Park, was truly breathtaking. And there were NO Lululemon pants to be seen!

Next, Eliza found the newest carriage ride in the Park and we headed over to the Alice in Wonderland statue:

It appears that Samantha wants to follow in her mother's footsteps toward the noble career of lactation consulting:

While we wound our way through the Park toward the American Museum of Natural History, I had the pleasure of hearing all about how I was a terrible mother for not letting these people consume candy at 9:30 in the morning. I opted to buy them a pretzel and was offered mediocre status:

Next we hit the museum. And while the Hayden Planetarium Show was a huge hit (Neil Degrassi Junior High Tyson's Dark Universe), the girls were a bit "meh" on the rest of the museum that we visited. Apparently the wonders of DC have rendered them comfortably numb to other marvels of big cities. However, I felt slightly less guilty pulling them out of school since they did learn their precise weight on a red dwarf star, which in a twist of cosmic irony, is the same number they would earn in "life" if they chose to constantly ditch school as I was forcing them to do...

I then decided to exert my powers to transform myself from mediocre Mom to "best Mom ever" by purchasing overpriced smoothies from a cart:

It was such a fantastic feeling, I decided to supplement it with trips to Dylan's Crack Bar and American Girl These Doll Clothes Cost More Money Than My Own Clothes Store.

After some NY Pizza, we met up with one of my very dearest friends, Jenny Brady, college roommate and maid of honor extraordinaire. And I had the honor of meeting for the very first time, her most gorgeous daughter, Lila. At first, we took over the hotel gym and chatted while the girls played with very large balls:

Samantha insisted on going for the Kardashian look:

In a beautiful shift, Eliza assumed the role of big sister and played it to perfection:

Finally, we ended the day up on the roof top bar of our hotel, a no-frills Fairfield Marriott. Brand new and not well known, it really is a hidden gem. Shhh...

Eliza getting one last dance in before it was time to collapse...