This month has been a whirlwind of activities (including hot air balloons and tornadoes):
The first two weeks were dedicated to finally taking our family on that long-awaited trip to Washington DC. We'd been planning for over a year (maybe two) and there were a lot of things on our itinerary! We had an amazing time and got to see so many things, including:
- National Zoo (saw a panda!)
- Pentagon (tour)
- Bureau of Engraving and Printing (tour, but no free samples)
- Washington Monument (inside is closed, boo hoo)
- Smithsonial Museum of Natural History (can you say "evolution?")
- National Archives (waited in line for over an hour!)
- Sculpture Garden
- Air & Space Museum on the National Mall and the Udvar Hazy off-site
- Smithsonian Castle
- Library of Congress (tour)
- US Capitol Building (tour of senate and house galleries, rotunda and more)
- The White House (no tour, boo hoo - cancelled for imaginary "snow storm")
- Lincoln Memorial
- Korean Memorial
- WW2 Memorial
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
- FDR Memorial
- Jefferson Memorial
- Viet Nam War Memorial (engulfed by the names)
- Iwo Jima Memorial
- Ford's Theater (tour)
- Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery
- Old Post Office (tour of clock tower)
- and more!
We got lots of experience using the DC Metro. And, after a while, we figured out the Metro was using us -- we were paying an extra dollar each way for each passenger ($8, multiple times a day) just because we used a paper pass!
Along the way, we also went to the Airborne & Special Ops Museum in Ft. Bragg, NC -- very nicely done museum!
So, we shared all these "national treasures" with our children (allusion to the movie is intended as we had fun locating some of the movie's events/documents) and what did they enjoy the most?
- It snowed on us! (that was pretty neat)
- Eating donuts every morning at the cheap, old motel we stayed at
- Watching HGTV (home & garden - we don't have cable at home)
- Visiting the Air and Space Museums (with the kind of stuff we see in Florida all the time!)
- An unexpected and unplanned ice skating experience in an outdoor rink! and
- Eating ravioli at a Fazoli's Restaurant on the way home (ours closed down a few years ago)!
Go figure!
After getting things back to normal (the laundry got done and the pets came home), my daughter and I were scheduled for a hot air balloon ride. After two cancellations for weather, we were excited (and a little scared) for our journey. More about our ride and our later brush with tornadoes in the next update!
