Welcome to DC, where everything is free!!!

Since Ben loves us more than anyone else in the family, he came out to visit us.  

He might have spent some time at a math conference while he was here, but the point is, he could have found a math conference anywhere, and he chose DC, because he loves us.  

And because it's where, apparently, everything is free.  Free rides to and from the airport, free dinners, free hotels, free math knowledge, free DC tours, free monuments, free museums, free entertainment....it's all FREE!!!

Ben's free weekend began with showing us his schedule and when he would have free time for us.

We dropped him off at his fancy, free hotel at 2 am and we witnessed this for the first time.

Which reminded us of this:

Later that weekend, Chitty Chitty Ben Ben  got the fully loaded free tour of our nation's capitol.

He saw the Washington.

He saw the capitol.

And we walked through a swamp so that he could see the White House.

This is what happened to Kelly in the swamp.  There were tears shed.  

Because Ben was more excited to see the White House than anything else (we never discovered exactly why), we decided to see it from both views.  We always go the extra mile as tour guides.

Woodruff for President 2012

We ate at a quaint Italian place at the Reagan Center for "free."  Don't worry, Kim, it was vegan.

One of the many great things about Ben, is that he is blissfully obedient.  If you say "Hey Ben, can you go lean against that wall with your arms folded for a photo shoot?" he does it immediately without question.

When it got dark, we visited my ALL-TIME favorite place on the mall - the World War II Monument.

You walk along granite pillars that represent all the states and territories that dedicated themselves to the cause of winning the war.  There is a laurel wreath hanging on each pillar, and as you walk up the ramp you find yourself crowned with each state - like you were part of the war, the service, the victory.

We each took a picture by the state we are most in love with.

This is what we got when we asked a non-English speaking tourist to take our picture.

This is what we get when we ask an English-speaking tourist to take our picture.

This is Ben with his "Everything is Free!" face.

"Hey Ben, will you dance between the pillars of the Lincoln Monument so that we can video your shadow dance?"

Korean Monument.  You can barely tell which one is the statue and which one is Ben.

Ben next to his favorite thing about DC, the crosswalks that give you 64 second countdowns to cross a street that takes 3 seconds.

Ben had mentioned several times how cool it would be to touch the Washington Monument.  So he did.  Because he's cool.

And he's brave.  Look at all those bugs!

DC rebels jumping off the path.

DC rebels hopping fences.

This boy was a tired little math baby after a full night of free DC tours.

The next day, we took Ben to our most favorite place in the DC area: the Amish market.

Ben loved the Lincoln statue pose, it was hard to get him to do any other pose for pictures.

We brought our Amish market goods home to eat so that Ben could see where we lived.  We feasted on stuffed pretzels, a cream cheese pumpkin roll, and orange lemonade.  Don't worry, Kim, it was all vegan.

Then we had a dance party.

Then we sang our way to the airport where Ben tried to squeeze all his DC memories into his luggage.

Then we said good-bye and cried a little.

And our little water boy flew back to the Burg.

I hope there's one thing we've all learned from this post: you too can have a wonderful, free time in DC.  Please come visit.  And please hurry. 

And if that's not convincing enough, you can also have your own trailer, with an accompanying movie (opening day: June 26th)