Saturday, October 25th, 2008 I know, a parent shouldn’t take their kids out of school, but I thought this would be a good exception. Jim had a bride and groom last month who both work in DC, one for Bush and one for Biden. They hooked us up with all the good tours…ones only offered to White House staff!! It was awesome!!
We stayed at Hotel Rouge. It was about 6 blocks from the White House, so we walked a lot. It had a super cute lobby…Matt enjoys a Starbucks…
Ready for our first tour!! In front of the Executive Office Building, where our bride works…next door to the White House…it was a beautiful building!! It used to be the Department of war.
We weren’t allowed to take photos on our first tour of the White House, but afterwards we went to a summit on International Development, with a speech by Bush!! They had a group of African kids dancing and singing…they were fabulous!!
George was introduced by the president of Liberia…
The kids and I were only about 10 rows from him…and he looked right at us…after all, they were the only kids in there…he must have been surprised to see kids!!
These were a row of homes near the White House….they were all so cute…Matt was emerging from one in his suit…he fit right in!!
From there, we walked over to the Washington Monument…
How cute is this kid!?
Then on to Jefferson Monument….it was farther than it looked!!
We walked all the way from there!
On to Lincoln Memorial…we could see it just acrss the lake…we decided to walk…and on the way we got some great photos!!
Lincoln Memorial was also farther than we thought, and along the way, we came across the Roosevelt Momument…
Jim decided to tell him a ting or two…
After miles of walking, we came to the Lincoln Memorial and were treated to a nice view of where we started at the Washington Monument!!
After all that walking, we still weren’t done for the day!! We still had one more tour with Susan, Jim’s bride< at the West Wing of the White House!! We couldn't take photos inside, but this was the rose garden with the Oval Office behind us...
Outside he West Wing…
Inside the Press Debriefing room…the same one we see on TV!! It was way smaller than it seems on TV..
I had a really good question….
In front of the Debriefing room…
The next day was the coolest tour ever!! We gotto climb 300 stairs to the top of the capital dome!! This is once we got halfway up, looking down at where all the other tours stop….
These are the paintings on the top of the dome, with George Washington in the center, surrounded by 13 ladies, representing the 13 colonies, and all the important areas of commerce at the time….war, machines, medical, agriculture, etc….
Here is the view from the top!!
From halfway down, looking up…
There was a gap between the inner and outer dome, where the staircases were…this is the door going back into the buliding at the bottom of the dome…
For the tour of the inside of the capital building, you have to be guest of someone, so we were guests of Biden!!
This is where the Senate used to meet, before it got too big….what a beautiful room!!
This is the dome from all the way down at floor level!!
Some old iron doors that were to be the first doors to the capital….but it never happened for some reason….they were HUGE!
Wow!! We went all the way to the top of there!!
Matt got himself into a bit of a pickle on the way to lunch!!
We had a little time on our hands, so we went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum…
After the Air & Space Museum, we had a scheduled lecture at the Supreme Court and learned about how that works, and we went into the Library of Congress right next door…it was a beautiful building!!
And off to the Natural History Museum…
Outside of the Smithsonian visitor center….looks like a castle…
Later that day, we went over to Georgetown to check out the cute streets…
The next day, we went to see the Richard Avedon exhibit near the White House…
walking to the Metro, we saw this beautiful building..
Taking the Metro to Arlington Cemetery…
We walked (MORE!!) around the cemetery and saw Kennedy’s graves, the Tomb of the Unknown, Robert E Lee’s house and a lot of graves…..
On our way back to the Metro….family “portrait” time…
Back on the Metro for a trip to Alexandria, Virginia….such a cute town!!
Gadsby’s Tavern….where George Washington used to eat when he hung out here…
It was only a 3 1/2 day trip, but we sure managed to pack a lot in!! We even ran into the Archives on our way to the airport to get a look at the actual Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights…. they were all bigger than we thought and pretty faded, but it was super cool to see them!! After that, we stopped into the National Geographic Museum and checked out the Whales and National Geographic photographers….another great museum!! I was amazed at all we were able to pack into one trip!! And all that walking!! Sheesh!!
