monuments and memorials

almost two months into our stay in the dc metropolitan area, we finally ventured into the iconic national mall.  'twas a lovely, sunny, late summer day, not too crowded, and punctuated with only a few metro mishaps on the way ;-)

chloe looked like such a big girl in her corner seat on the metro, with her purse and her chewing gum, studying the map:

lucy was a little less enthused by the train ;-)

i'd forgotten how imposing the washington monument is:

and how touching and sobering the war memorials are.  this is part of the world war II memorial:

the highlight for the girls - their first italian ice =) we got a lot of smiles and chuckles for scenes like this:

it was a long outing, and with the warmth and the sunshine, it was bound to end up like this =)