DC days 1 & 2

We are alive and have survived 2 whole days in our amazing capital city. 2 more to go, and we will see if we survive those as well. Sunday we went to Arlington National Cemetery, and that is an amazing place. A great lesson in reverence especially for the kids. We were able to see lots of monuments Sunday--Lincoln, Jefferson, Korean War, and Vietnam War. Ben and I had not seen the Korean War memorial before. It was really cool.

Today we were able to go the Great Falls National Park which was amazing. I didn't realize the Potomac is so big and has such amazing falls! It was beautiful, and a great precursor for Niagara Falls next week. We were able to enjoy the National Museums of Art. We were able to see the only Leonard Da Vinci in the United States. Miss A was really excited about that because she had just done a big research project on him end of school. She even dressed up like him and gave a 2 minutes speech as him. Cool stuff. My kids loved the underground walkway between the East and West Art Museums. It has these awesome changing lights--like you are in a space ship or something. We had to go down and up it twice. We hit the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Of course the highlight there was the First Ladies dresses, and Mrs. Obama's is there already. They also had a pair of Apollo Ohno's Olympic speed skates there. That was Miss O's favorite find of the day. We were also able to go to the Washington DC temple which is gorgeous.

We have to get to bed quick because we have White House tickets for 7:30 a.m. (not by choice, you just take what they give you). We got stuck in rush hour traffic going "home" today, and my kids had a hard time with that. It doesn't exist in their world. Miss O asked, "Why is it called Rush hour when you go so slow?" We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.