Last Tuesday, our whole family piled into the van, along with suitcases, backpacks, and (yes) plenty of snacks, and began our eight our drive to Virginia where we stayed with my mom's best friends, brother. (Confusing, I know.) They have a really nice, large house and were able to comfortably fit our family into the extra rooms. (Cassia and I were happy to get a room upstairs and far away from the basement where all the other kids slept! ;D) We arrived Tuesday and got used to our surroundings and Dad, Mom, and us four oldest took a quick trip to their Wegmans.
We all crashed into bed that night, I got a really nice bed, and slept really well (at least, I did). We got up early on Wednesday and headed out to DC, which was an hour away from the house. It was a warm, but nice day and we had fun walking all over DC and seeing all the famous sights that everyone hears about, but never actually sees! =P
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The Thomas Jefferson Memorial
that we only saw as we drove by
at a distance. |
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| The first view of the Washington Monument. |
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Dad dropped us off outside of the Department
of Agriculture! |
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| Walking to the Washington Monument. |
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| The Capitol Building, from a distance. |
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| WWII Memorial |
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| Outside the Lincoln Memorial |
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| The Veitnam Memorial |
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| The White House |
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| Views from the Washington Monument |
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The only known camera to take the video of the
airplanes crashing into the Twin Towers |
The next day, we went to the Arlington Cemetery where soldiers and famous people are buried. The Tomb of the Unknowns is there and holds the bodies of one unknown soldier from every battle. We got to see the changing of the guard, that was really cool! We also got to see the Arlington House, which was Robert E. Lee's house, and John F. Kennedy's gravesite.
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| The Tomb of the Unknowns |
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| The guard for the Tomb of the Unknowns |
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| The Arlington House |
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Mom and the kids looking at JFK's grave
with the Arlington House in the bakground |
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JFK's grave along with his wife and his
two babies that died at or soon after birth |
We went to the Museum of Natural History and after all the animals and such, we saw mummies. They were pretty gross. The one on the right below, was a little boy about 3 dated back about 2000 years ago, around the time Jesus was born! (I have no idea how they were able to figure that out, but I am glad I'm not the one who was given that job!!)
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| A real "live" mummy. |
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So glad they weren't actually alive. They
were creepy enough dead! |
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| I'm grateful that I'm not Egyptian! |
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A Gettysburg site. Can't remember
the name of it |
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| At Gettysburg |
We left Virgina and stopped in Gettysburg PA on the way home. That part isn't as interesting to me, so I only have two pics of that. We got to see Dad and Mom's first apartment, which was neat as the next day was their anniversary!
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Eating ice cream at the Gettysburg DQ
(Dairy Queen) |
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| Mom and Dad's first apartment |
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Our hotel room that we stayed in on Sunday
night |
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| Our drive home through the mountians! |
