Continued...

We started the last day of the fam's vacation at Arlington National Cemetery. The fam took the tour while Ben and Kelly wondered through the cemetery in search of interesting gravesites. We found several Supreme Court justices, including Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

We met up with the fam at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider to watch the changing of the guard and 2 wreath changing ceremonies.

We left the cemetery and headed to Ray's Hellburger for lunch. After returning to the apt, half of us made a return trip to the Eastern Market to do a little shopping. Kelly picked up some wonderful peaches for the week while Mom proceeded to spend her first retirement check at the bakery and lemonade stand.

The afternoon included laying around while Ben worked his magic in the kitchen. Gumbo and spinach cornbread was on the menu for the fam's last dinner and even though there were doubters, everyone seemed to enjoy Ben's concoction. After dinner we laid around the apartment, talked about the wedding and enjoyed a mediocre tv movie.

Everybody but mom and dad left monday morning. The rest of us drove them to the airport in Baltimore.

For all the veteran blog readers, you will remember the Paper Moon restaurant that we are fond of. We decided since we were in the semi-close area, we would show mom and dad our new favorite place to eat.

With full stomachs, we headed to the Thomas Jefferson and FDR memorials. They had not made it over to these memorials on their tour and they are a couple of our favorites. One reason we like them so much is their location. They are right on the tidal basin and normally less populated. We went to the Jefferson Memorial first and enjoyed the beautiful statute and insightful quotes on the wall.

We took a nice stroll along the basin and walked through the FDR memorial. FDR happens to be Kelly's mom's favorite president so she really enjoyed the memorial.

Ben and Kelly's dad wanted to go the Nationals vs the Cubs game, so Kelly and mom dropped them off on the way to the aptartment. While the boys were at the game they got a little wedding planning done.  Kelly is sure that it has to be a frustrating process for mom and Abbey due to the ignorance and overall apathy that Kelly has shown in planning the wedding. In her defense, all she wants is at the end of the day we are married, the details are up to them!

Meanwhile, Ben and Roger were acquiring new complimentary hats, watching baseball game between mediocre teams, and admiring the number of people who decided to celebrate America's birthday by wearing U.S. flag pants.

It was good to see another President's race get the crowd fired up.  Teddy failed to win again.

(not everyone was fired up)

After Ben and Roger got home from the baseball game, we headed to Cantina Marina for dinner. It was a great evening for sitting outside and we had a great table right on the water.

(Check out the complimentary hats - Go Nats!)

After some great seafood, we went back to the house for a bit before heading to the Capitol for the fireworks. We grabbed a spot on the steps of the Library of Congress, which is not an ideal spot, but is only a 15 minute walk from the apartment without the hassle of security or crowds. The fireworks were impressive.

They were loud, big and long. The finale was approx 3 minutes long and shook the ground.

Mom and dad were getting on the road first thing in the morning. It was sad to see them go, we had a great visit and wished they could stay a couple days longer.