Washington DC

Yesterday was definitely an adventure! We woke up super early, and drove with some or our friends to DC! We left at 5 am so that we would have the whole day to see things. We got to see a lot!

First we went out to breakfast, and then we made our first stop at Arlington Cemetery. It was amazing to see all of those gravestones. There are still an average of 27 soldiers buried there each weekday. This is only a fraction of the 600 or so acres of the cemetery.

President Kennedy's grave, as well as his family's. Above it is the Eternal Flame. Just like it sounds, it has never stopped burning since he died. If there is a bad storm, they take part of the flame and bring it somewhere safe, so that the flame really can never be extinguished. Crazy!

This is the view from Kennedy's grave. That is the Washington monument in the background.

We got to see the changing of the gaurds, as well as a ceremony for a soldier. It was really neat.

This is an amphitheater where a lot of speeches are made I guess!

Next we went over to where the other sites are. They are all around the same area so it was just walking from one to the next.

This is a building that has something to do with agriculture, I can't remember exactly which one it is. The point of putting it on here is to show what all of the buildings look around Washington Monument. They are all massive and exquisite like this. It looked awesome!

A few of the friends that we went with, Jaelynne, Kyle and Shadolyn.

Washington Monument! The sky was perfect for pictures here.

View from Washington Monument of the Capitol. It was huge.

Logan using his photography skills. He took some awesome picture!

As you walk up to the monument it looks like it is made of brick. Then you get close and they are more like Giant bricks. This is how big they are compared to Log!

This is the best picture we could get of the White House. They didn't let you get close enough for a good picture. But we did see the President's helicopter land in his front yard. If you look close at this picture you can see it right in front between the trees.

The helicopter left just a couple minutes later, along with the guard helicopter. Here it is flying away! Was it picking up the President? Dropping him off? Who knows, but it was cool!

On one side of the Monument is the Capitol, and on the other side is the Lincoln Memorial, which you see here!

Lincoln Memorial, after the long walk from the Monument.

You can see in our faces in the next two pictures how our enthusiasm for seeing Lincoln was drained after walking in the scorching heat all day and being on the verge of dehydration.

This is the group we came with, minus Jacque, who was taking the picture, and Jackson, who is in the stroller that Log is holding on to. So no, that is not our stroller. :)

After seeing all of this we went to the Holocaust Museum. It was amazing, and kind of depressing. But I think it was one of my favorite things of the day. Then we decided against our better judgment to walk to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We were so exhausted from the heat and walking that we were in and out in just a couple minutes, and didn't take pictures. We weren't thinking very straight by then because we were so hungry. We ended the journey going to dinner, and driving home again! We didn't get home til 2 am because of some strange middle-of-the-night traffic. We had such a blast with everyone though, and we are so glad we got to see DC!!!