Our vacation Wednesday

We had an early start on Wednesday since we had tickets to the International Spy Museum at 9:00 in the morning.  Note to self and anyone interested, if you have at least an hour transport time to get into DC, don't schedule your tickets for 9:00 if you don't want grumpy family members!  Especially if they went to a baseball game the night before!!

But the spy museum was really cool and is highly recommended.  Lots of interesting spy gear; fun activities; and lots of James Bond movie references!!

Camden, a.k.a, Billy Henderson, in his spy costume

Practicing being able to hang from a beam suspended in the air

 

 

After learning how to spy, we ate lunch, made a stop at the Naval Memorial...

 

 

 

...and then headed to the American History Museum.  My personal favorite.  I like seeing the First Ladies' dresses and the pop culture memorabilia.  And of course seeing the Star Spangled Banner is a must see. 

 

 

We didn't see Bobby Flay when we ate at his restaurant in NYC, but we got to see his picture in the Smithsonian!

Dorothy's ruby slippers

Camden was excited to see Kermit...Nathan was smiling to get finished with one more picture!

Elphaba's dress from Wicked

Laura Bush's dress

After a brief rest....

 

...we went to see the Washington Monument.  Of course with all of the scaffolding around it, it does not make for the best picture.

 

 

For dinner that night we went to Pentagon City and ate in the food court.  It was nice to sit down in air conditioning. 

 







We finally made it back to our hotel with no appointments for the next day!  We were all ready for a good night's sleep!

The kids' beds were made up nicely when we returned.

Camden did not like sleeping with Nathan rolling on top of him...guess where he ended up in the middle of the night :)





 



Vacation Tuesday

On Tuesday of our vacation we headed to Capitol Hill!  We had an appointment to tour the Capitol at 10:10, but we were late because we had to eat all of our food that was in our backpacks before we could enter.  This was the only place to ask this of us, thank goodness!  We proceeded to a long line of people and were given headphones.  The kids thought this was cool.  Our tour guide could talk to us through them, however, we could not talk back.  Camden and Josiah didn't know this though, and when she was asking if we could hear her, they "spoke" into their battery packs, "Yes!"

Ready to tour the Capitol

Yes I can hear you!!

 

Amy beside one of Alabama's statue's-Helen Keller

A model of the statue on top of the Capitol-the actual size

 

After finishing our tour, we then headed to Mark Sanford's office to get passes to go to the House chambers.  Nothing was in session since it was the week of the fourth.  Maybe that was a good thing so that we wouldn't get too upset and yell at the Congressmen for passing dumb legislation :)

 

Lunch in the Capitol was followed by an underground walk to the Library of Congress.  It is a beautiful library!  Wish the West Ashley library had been renovated like this :)

 

 

Camden found his favorite new book character!

 

 

Our next stop was the Supreme Court.  We were able to go inside the court, but no court in session. 

We couldn't take pictures inside the court room, but I was able to take one from outside :)

Good thing Nathan didn't push Taft over on us...we might have been kicked out!

The dizzying spiral staircase that we weren't allowed to walk on

 

The next stop was a joke for Jennifer...a visit to the Taft Memorial.  Not to President Taft, but his son.  Who?!?!  Can just anyone get a memorial in DC?!?!

 

 

 

Our last stop before parting ways for the evening was Union Station.  The upstairs was really nice, however, the food court left a lot to be desired.  



 



 













Union Station

We were a little tired after all the walking!

 

 

We then parted ways.  Dave and Rob took the older kids to the Nationals baseball game in which they lost to the Brewers.  Nathan was happy about this because he is a Braves fan.  He even wore his Braves stuff to the game and almost got kicked out by the Nationals Mascot!!  The rest of us went back to the hotel for swimming.  It was an overall fun day; but very long for the baseball gamers!

 

 

Tomorrow is going to come early...



Vacation Day Two

Well I am now revisiting day two of our summer vacation.  After we drove to Culpeper, VA on Sunday night, we left there Monday morning and headed to Manassas Battlefield.  As Camden said, battlefields are great places to play tag, except when there is fighting!  Today there was only tag :)

 

Lots of grass and cannons at battlefields :)

 

 

We left Manassas, checked in at our awesome hotel, and headed to Arlington Cemetery.  We were able to see JFK's grave; the changing of the guard and the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; and many tombstones representing men and women who served our country.  It is a sacred sight.

 

 

Reading words of Kennedy

 

 

Kennedy's tomb and the eternal flame

 

One of the impressive tombs

Changing of the guard

 

The 911 Pentagon Memorial near Arlington

 

 

After a long day of driving and sightseeing, we ended with a great dinner at The Peking Gourmet Inn.  We ordered duck and several Chinese dishes.  The food was great and laughter all around while eating fortune cookies was a great way to finish the evening.

Nathan eating duck 

Josiah eating duck and Camden playing with the fans handed out to the children

A fun dinner for all!