Washington D.C.

Ever since my brother Mckay moved to Pennsylvania about 6 years ago I've wanted to take a family trip to the east coat to visit my brother's family and see the church history sites in New York and Pennsylvania.  Twice over the years I even managed to save enough money for the trip but then decided to use the money for more pressing things .  This last spring we had finally accumulated enough skymiles to get airline tickets for the entire family so we planned our big trip over UEA weekend.  The kids missed 2 days of school before the break and 2 days after the break but it gave us a full week to see a LOT of cool things.

 Monday was really busy trying to pack and get ready, but Adam and I made time to go and eat lunch with Korinne on "Parents come and eat lunch with your kids day".  She was very surprised to see us because we didn't tell her we were coming, but I think she was glad we did.  Our flight was scheduled for Tuesday, October 13th at 9:40 a.m. so we decided to go to SLC the night before and stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house there. 

Mmmm, macho nachos.

When I ran to the store to get a few things Jameson insisted on getting a picture with the pumpkins in front of the store.

We got to the airport on Tuesday morning for our first family flight in 8 years. 

The older kids did really well, but because it took us a few hours to figure out how to make the in-flight movie options work on our electronic devices Jameson struggled a bit.  Sitting in one seat for a few hours isn't exactly his thing. Just when I thought he was going to die Adam finally got a movie working on his phone and peace was restored.

He liked having the window seat as we were landing.

We got into Philadelphia at around 4 p.m., had our baggage and rental van by about 5 p.m. and then headed to Mckay and Tricia's house.  It was fun to see the cousins waiting for us in the window and start running around when we pulled in the driveway.

Jenna and Jessica

Cameron doing homework with Thomas and Jameson running around him.

Uncle Mckay

Aunt Tricia

It didn't take long for Jameson to find their trains in the basement.

The next morning the cousins were off to school and we got in our car and left for Washington D.C.  Mckay gave us the heads up on his favorite route to get to D.C. from their house.  Gettysburg was on the way so we couldn't help but stop for a little bit.

The kids with Abe Lincoln

My brother hooked us up with a CD of the audio tour through Gettysburg.

This was the area of the first day of battle on July 1, 1863.

A beautiful overlook area.

The tour was taking a little longer than we  thought so we decided to leave before it ended.  I mean, we know how it ended and all so we didn't feel like we were missing anything, but we did make it a point to stop at the site where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.

When Korinne participates in the Civil War reenactment next year as a 5th grader she will most likely be the only student in her class to have actually been to the place where the Gettysburg Address was given.

We only had one more stop to make on our way to Washington D.C. and that was to Cafe Rio in Franklin, Maryland. The ONLY Cafe Rio west of the Mississippi.  Mckay and Tricia gave us the heads up on this one.  It is right off the freeway and all the Mormons go there on their way to the temple. :-)  I'm not sure why I didn't think to take a picture, I must have been distracted by my yummy fire grilled steak salad. 

We rolled into Washington at about 3 p.m.  We had hoped to get there a bit earlier but somehow we still managed to see everything on the docket for the day. 

We started at the Air and Space Museum.

And then we went to the Natural History Museum.

Korinne looking at the Hope Diamond

The museums all close at 5:30 p.m. so we used our evening to see the monuments.

The Washington Monument.  

The kids kept walking around quoting a Studio C sketch of George Washington saying, "I have the quarter, the dollar, the capital, my own state, and my face carved in the side of a mountain but I could use a giant spike with my name on it!"  Not sure how many times we said it, but somehow it was still funny every time.

Jameson wasn't being very cooperative with the picture taking, but trust me, he was there.

The WWII monument was new for me.  It was constructed after my last visit to D.C. back in 2002.

We hit the Lincoln Memorial just as the sun was setting so the Washington Monument was reflecting the light from the sunset.  It was beautiful.

See, Jameson was there, but he would only smile if we bribed him with some Hi-Chews.

Jenna took this beautiful shot.

Ok, so this Jameson smile only cost me 2 Hi-Chews. Well worth it.

The Vietnam Memorial

So many names, so many lives.

It was pretty dark by the time we got to the White House, but it was cool to see it all lit up. The Hi -Chews were all gone by this point which meant Jameson's smiles were gone, too.

We walked back to the car and went about a mile away to the Hotel we were staying at for the night.

It had been a big day and we walked a lot so it didn't take us long to fall asleep that night.  The hotel didn't have a breakfast so we hit the McDonald's next door for some breakfast before going back to the National Mall for the day.  We'd never had a family breakfast at McDonald's before so it was another first for us.

We started with the Capital and were a little disappointed that the dome was covered in scaffolding.

I took Britton, Jenna and Korinne on a tour of the Capital from the visitors center while Adam took Jameson to the Museum of Native Americans next door. 

Not only was the outside covered in scaffolding, but the inside was covered, too.  The only thing that wasn't covered inside the dome was the painting on the top.

Rather than trying to yell so the entire group could hear her the tour guide gave everyone headphones. She just had to talk normally and we all heard every word no matter where we were.

Every state had a statue of someone significant selected by the state. Utah's statue was of Brigham Young.

Leaving the capital and going back to the visitor's center all underground.

From the Capitol visitor center you can take a tunnel under the street to the Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress was a beautiful building, but we didn't stay long because we needed to go find Adam and Jameson at another museum.

Next up was the American History Museum, which is my personal favorite.

Among other things we liked getting to see the original Kermit the Frog puppet made from Jim Henson's mother's old coat.

And the actual Greensboro lunch counter where students staged a sit in during the Civil Rights movement.

And Dorothy's ruby red slippers from the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie.

It was after 3 p.m. when we left the museum.  We thought about trying to fit in the Holocaust Museum with the older kids, but all of us were absolutely exhausted and thoughts of beating a little of the rush hour traffic to get out of the city was too much to pass up. We caught the Jefferson Memorial as we were leaving town.

We made it back to Mckay's house in Pennsylvania that night for some much needed rest.  The D.C. portion of the trip was fast and furious, but it was so awesome to see it all.  On the plane ride home Britton and Jenna watched the 2nd Night at the Museum Movie entitled "Battle of the Smithsonian" and thought it was cool that they recognized so many things in the movie. I'd say D.C. was amazing for the 3 older kids and Adam and me and slightly miserable for Jameson.  He survived, however, so it all worked out.