Washington DC

During our Thanksgiving break this year we decide to go on a little mini-vacation to Washington DC. We drove down on Monday and came home on Wednesday. We went down there with Derek and Talane Harper and their little girl, Derek goes to school with Jared. On Monday we stopped at the temple and explored the visitors center. The DC Temple is really amazing and we were able to see all the holiday decorations they have up. Bentli loved looking at the statue of Christ and talking about why there are holes in his hands. When asked by a missionary what her favorite story of Jesus is she replied, "when Jesus blesses the children". It fills me with joy that even so young she is able to understand that Jesus loves her, unconditionally. If only more people knew that simple truth.

Tuesday is when all the walking started! I wish that I would have worn one of those mile tracker things that tell you how far you walk. When you look at the map of the National Mall (all the museums and monuments) you don't realize how big the place is. The Lincoln Memorial was awesome, I had always wanted to see the statue of 'Abe'. We also saw the Washington Monument and WWII Monument. The National Archives was really neat, you can't use flash photography in there so the pics were too dark to really see. It was amazing to see the actual documents that founded this country, and of course to see John Hancock's signature on the Declaration of Independence.

In the afternoon we hit up the museums. There are a bunch of Smithsonian Museums and you could spend forever exploring all of them. We went to the Natural History Museum and I felt like we were only able to a tiny portion of it. They have a butterfly exhibit where you can walk in a dome that is filled with butterflies. Needless to say Bentli was in heaven and took a LOT of pics of all the butterflies and flowers and, of course, the ground. We also check out the Hope Diamond along with other jewelry worn by historical figures like Josephine Bonaparte. And of course you have to see the dinosaur bones.

Our last stop of the day was at the Air and Space Museum. Bentli has always had a fascination with airplanes, in part because her 'awesome Uncle Jake' is a fighter pilot in the Air Force. They had an exhibit of the cockpit that Bentli loved and she talked about all the controls for a few days. After that the kids were spent! We took the Metro (the kids loved riding on the train) back to the hotel and grabbed some dinner before the kids crashed. They did awesome and were happy the whole day.

We headed home earlier than we were originally planning on Wednesday when we realized that there would be a ton of holiday traffic. I wasn't really thinking when I planned this trip! So we made a quick stop to see the White House. There was a big tent/pavilion thing set up in front of it so we couldn't get a good pic, so hopefully next time, right? We left DC by 11:00 and still hit hard traffic. It took five hours instead of the two and a half to get home! I was just glad that Jared was driving. We had a great time and can't wait to go back. There is so much more there that I want to see and didn't have time for. It is so much fun to have these fun trips with our little family and have these memories together.