East Coast Part 2: Washington DC

When planning this trip I planned for the days to get progressively easier. As in, New York was our busiest, most frantic day and then the days following were less frantic. It was a great plan. So, Friday morning we had a bit of a lazy morning. We were exhausted from getting to the hotel so late. We woke up just in time to eat the complimentary breakfast. 

 Kim came over to eat with us then we thought we would take the kids to the pool. We got all ready and went to the pool but it was closed. Lame. They only open it in the evening on weekdays. Charlie was so excited when he saw the pool and then pretty distraught when we turned around and had to go back. He got over it quick because it was then bath time. After baths he made our way to downtown DC to explore the sites. We were sure glad that the government shutdown ended just before we were planning to go to DC. Good thing we did New York before DC, otherwise we would have missed a bunch.
On day one of DC we were the typical tourists. We got there later in the afternoon so we walked around the National Mall looking at all the monuments. 

  We found some relatively cheap parking and started walking. We first saw the Washington monument. It was having some construction done so it looked like it was in a cage. 

FYI...the weather was amazing the whole trip

We then walked towards the Lincoln memorial. 

 I liked this quote in the Lincoln Memorial

As we entered the memorial I was amazed at how huge it was. I started to feel dizzy looking around. Very Impressive!

My Charlie!

I'm definitely not one to know much history. I wish I knew more but, as of now, I don't. I still enjoyed it all. 

This was a very impressive monument. I think it was for the Korean War but I couldn't find anything that said what it was and I had never heard of this monument before. Correct me if I'm wrong.  Also, notice the beautiful Fall colors that were changing during our trip!

We then saw the very impressive World War II memorial!

I'm sure there was a ton of symbolism in it that I didn't understand but I still loved it. 

This is about as close as we got to the white house.

after eating a quick dinner the sun was starting to set and the view was amazing.

 Once again Charlie was exhausted and fell asleep in his stroller like this

 It was nice that we didn't have to drive a ton to get back to our hotel. We were tired and got to bed at a decent time. 

The next morning we ate breakfast, packed up and loaded up the car.

Charlie was an amazing helper, especially when it came to pulling luggage and pushing elevator buttons!

Since the government shutdown had ended we decided to go visit a couple Smithsonian Museums. If they were still closed we would have gone to either Mt. Vernon or the beach. But the Smithsonians are free and that sounded great to us. I've always wanted to go.

We found even closer parking this day. We walked to the museums through the sculpture garden where we saw some very modern art. 

Does this remind anybody else of The Lorax?

We started here because this was the museum we had heard the most about. 

 It was huge, we could have spent tons of times here but it didn't take long before we were exhausted and felt like we were walking around like Zombies.
 We definitely enjoyed it though!

Charlie liked the bug section. 

 I was pretty impressed with the bone and mummy section.

This place was seriously huge!

We really liked the animal exhibit too!

 Like I said before, this place was so huge that we almost missed the dinosaur exhibit...that's how big it was!

Even though we were pretty exhausted we figured we needed to at least go see the Ruby slippers so we hopped over to the Museum of American History...and we saw them!

We also saw a sunstone from the Nauvoo temple.

Sleeping in his stroller again, this time he found a new position. 

We liked seeing Kermit. I never knew that he has made from a coat that Jim Henson's mother was throwing away...I thought that was interesting. 

 We got to see the flag that inspired Frances Scott Key while writing The Star Spangled Banner. There was no photography allowed in this section of the museum but it was pretty amazing.

I especially love hear that song when we sing it in church around Independence day, specifically because we get to sing all versus that go unknown to many. I think the third verse is the most powerful and really shows what was and should be the foundation of our country. It was great to see the spiritual inspiration that went into our country,

Star-Spangled Banner vs. 3
Oh, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Anyway, we explored quite a bit more but my camera battery died. There was a neat history of automobiles and transportation exhibit that was pretty exciting as well as a first ladies exhibit. After we felt sufficiently cultured we headed back to the car and started our two hour drive to York Pennsylvania for Part 3 of our trip...stay tuned.