Washington D.C.

OK so I'm warning you now, I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I wanted to. Our hotel was about 20 minutes from down town D.C. so the drive there was kind of uneventful, accept for the HORRIBLE traffic. If you ever visit D.C. stay in a hotel right by the D.C. Mall (the main strip). It's so worth the money. Also there is so much walking that small children is a bad idea, unless you have a week and can take your time seeing everything. I think we walked a total of 4 1/2 miles that Saturday. The buildings are so huge that you have to walk a ton just to get from place to place, even though they are all lined up next to each other. Also everything is so huge that it's hard to capture the way everything looked in pictures. I was bummed that we couldn't go into more places. Every place took a couple hours to go through and we just didn't have the time to do it all. I really wanted to see the American History museum (they actually have Dorthy's red shoes there) but it still is not open due to remodeling. I also wanted to see the National Archives where the Declaration of Independence is but we just didn't have time, and if you can't tell by the names of the places they are not for preschoolers and toddlers. Here's what I've got though...

Into Delaware. I totally forgot to take a picture of Baltimore, MD while we drove through it. Can I just say how cool it was to actually see streets that looked exactly like the neighborhood in Hairspray. We even listened to the soundtrack while we drove through. I know this is a crappy picture of the temple but this gives you the idea of what it looks like. I took it too late and it wasn't in focus. People always told me it looked like a castle. They said your driving along and as you drive up over a hill it comes into view like a floating palace. It's much better in person. John and I got to go to a session that Friday night. It's huge! It's got like 5 floors! It's probably twice the size of the Mesa temple. I had pictures of it on my camera phone but my phone went through the wash cycle this week. :(The Capital building. The Natural History Museum. What a great place. This was the highlight of the trip for Boston. He loved it. They had tons of stuff to see. It varied from dinosaurs, water fossils, underwater discoveries, an animal kingdom area, a rocks and gems area, a dirt and soil area, a butterfly exhibit, Japanese exhibit, and more I can't remember. Amanda took tons of pictures but I had to keep moving or the kids would start yelling.
The Hope Diamond. Outside the Natural History museum. Boston wanted to pose like this. Whatever (roll eyes and snicker now). The Old Post Office which was eventually changed into a business and eating area after a new post office was built.
Name that house. Can you see the security personnel on top? I was so excited to see the White House. It's so unreal when you actually see it in person. Check that off of things I want to do in my life time. It's very pretty and well manicured. I found out that two days later President elect Obama and his family went and visited the Bush family there. Man, that would have been cool to see. Not the most flattering picture, but this gives you a good idea of how much walking there was. In front of me is the Lincoln Memorial and the reflection pool (huge!), and behind me is the WWII Memorial, the Washington Monument, and way in the back the Capital Building. Just about all the museums are between the Capital Building and the Washington Monument. The White House is way, way to the left of the Washington Monument. To the way right is the Jefferson Memorial. The Vietnam memorial is directly to my left and the Korean memorial is directly to my right. I know, who decided to make these memorials so freakin' huge?! There's not gonna be much room for any more in the future. Poor future presidents. :(The Lincoln Memorial. Leave it to my child to ruin a memorable picture. On either side of the monument were speeches President Lincoln gave, one of course being the "Four score and seven years ago..." speech.

This is the exact spot that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I have a dream" speech. Side note: people would pour water on it so you could see it better. It gets pretty dusty with all those feet. I congrats note to President elect Obama. I tried to take pictures of Boston in front of it so when he gets older he can have proof that he was actually there when the first African American was elected as president. He of course put his hand over his face and was a goof. I managed to get one decent one. Korean Memorial
Vietnam Memorial
WWII memorial. Don't worry y'all, we were gonna take a picture in front of AZ too but then we would have had to walk all the way to the other side. By this time we were too tired to care that much. Can you see my kids falling asleep in the stroller?
We didn't have much time 'cause it was getting late but Manda and I managed to do a real quick walk through the Air & Space Museum. I really want to see this again and I know Boston would love this place. This is one of the lunar modules, but I don't remember which one.

Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia. Can you believe that Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin Jr flew this to the moon. So cool.