Washington DC

Last weekend we took a semi-impromptu trip to Washington DC. Tyler had a (very rare) day off, so I took work off and we headed down to DC on Friday with Tyler's classmate, Jeff. The drive was surprisingly only 6 1/2 hours so we got there about 2 pm. We immediately headed to the monuments with Jeff as our professional tour guide, telling us where to park and what sites to see.

We first saw the Washington Monument. It was amazing! So tall and majestic. I loved the flags circling the entire thing.We then walked across the mall to the Lincoln monument. Also beautiful, but actually my least favorite of the monuments we saw that day.We also saw the Jefferson monument which was my favorite. So simple and elegant without the craziness of the Lincoln. The dome on the inside was completely beautiful and the quotes carved on the walls of the things Jefferson said are so inspiring. We also hit the new WWII memorial, Vietnam memorial and Korean War memorial. It is so sad to see the enormous numbers of people killed in those wars.

Just to be sure to pack as many monuments in one day as possible, we went to the FDR monument as well. Of course we took some classic pictures...
For dinner we met up with Tyler's high school buddy/BYU roomie, Steve and his wife Lindsay. We ate at a delicious pizza place in Georgetown and had fun catching up with them.

The next day Tyler and I went out by ourselves to check out the White House. We got beautiful weather and could appreciate the cherry blossoms out and the magnolia trees there.We stopped by the National Archives to see the Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and The Constitution on our way up the capitol. No pictures... don't even think about it!
The capitol was awesome- much bigger and grander than I anticipated. We took tons of pictures and went around back to take the tour. While in line, a worker told us all that no waterbottles (empty or full), food and anything semi--sharp was not allowed. I had my Nalgene water bottle with me and we didn't want to throw it away or take it back to the car (VERY long walk at this point) so we decided to hide it. Tyler dug a hole in some wood chips against the wall where we stashed my waterbottle and a pocket knife for a guy in front of us. About 5 minutes later a security officer came up to Tyler and the man and said for them to come with him! He took them over to the exact spot where the stuff was buried and asked them what they put in there... told them they had to dig it up and walked away. We should have thought that we were being watched! It was a pretty hilarious experience though! So, we didn't end up going on the tour, but at least Tyler wasn't arrested or anything!

We grabbed some lunch and then went to the Air & Space museum. I wasn't expecting to like it very much (pretty much zero interest in planes) but it was fun! I loved all the space stuff. Tyler surprised me with all his knowledge about space missions and specific airplanes. Apparently he loved planes when he was little! We need to go on vacation more, because every time we do, I find out some random thing about his childhood interests. So here's the big (little) boy with some cool planes.We ate dinner in that night with Jeff's family and went to bed exhausted after a long day of walking.

On our way out of town on Sunday, we stopped at Arlington National Cemetery and walked around. It was breathtaking. So beautiful and sad at the same time. The Robert E. Lee house was there and really neat to walk through. We watched the changing of the guards at the grave of the unknowns and then went to see the temple quick before we left.We had a great trip! It was fun to go and relax a little bit and do something fun without spending tons of money. If you need to go on a budget vacation, DC is the way to go! We only ended up paying for food and gas.