Thank you so much for humoring me last week and coming out of the wood work (or not) to leave your comments (and birthday wishes) on the last post.  No big surprises on who is reading out there, but there were a couple of people I was pleased to discover were still reading, despite silence in the last few months.

So, with the help of www.random.org, I've chosen one commenter to receive a little goodie:  #2, vmichelle!  You will be the (hopefully) proud owner of one the following items from my the small pile of completed sewing projects.  Shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment on this post to let me know which one you want:

Napkin and placemat (2-place settings)

A selection of cloth napkins:

One of the following yoga mat bags:

 Re-purposed cushion cover shoulder bag

We diverged from our usual quiet pastoral weekends at home by making our first overnight trip to D.C. this past weekend - not just one night, as originally planned, but two - both thanks to Marriott Rewards Points.  We wanted to see more than possible - including the Lincoln Memorial - when round-trip car and Metro travel for a day trip adds up to almost five hours.

It's a good little walk out to the Memorial and we should have brought a stroller for the little 4-year-old legs, but we so rarely use the stroller these days, we just didn't think about it.  It's a pretty walk, though, along the famous Reflecting Pool, which is bordered by the trees and grass and geese-dotted pond of Constitution Gardens and we hoped that would be enough to keep Gideon pacified.

Little did we know that the Reflecting Pool looks like this now - for two years to come:

And the wind was blowing so hard, it did this to the 30-year-old, permanently planted National Christmas tree in the Ellipse in front of the White House:

But we made it and Gideon seemed genuinely interested in the marble man in the large chair once we did:

We toured the Korean and Vietnam War Memorials as well, before Gideon and I parked ourselves at the pond (not drained, thankfully) in the Constitution Gardens while Jeremy went to pick up the car at the hotel and rescue us from a long, whiny walk back to the hotel.  Gideon ran his cars among some very famous signatures and we watched the geese and chatted with other loafers by the pond.

                  

The rest of Saturday was spent napping, watching TV and swimming in the hotel pool - very much scaled down from what a sight-seeing day would have looked like for me pre-kid.  Everything takes so much more time, must be so much more deliberate.

Sunday, we were so centrally located in our hotel, we were able to have breakfast at the Washington institution Old Ebbitt Grill, tour the National Aquarium, see the original "Charters of Freedom" at the National Archives and have lunch and a 360-degree view of the capital city at the Old Post Office Pavilion, with a minimum of hassle and fuss and public displays of aggravation.

It was a good weekend, and pleasant to have a break from our normal routines, but I must confess to breathing a sigh of relief and unclenching just a bit when we passed the St. Mary's County sign.  It's always good to be home - and I'm finding more and more I treasure our quiet country surroundings.  The big city is a good place to visit, but I don't think I could live there anymore.