Washington D.C.

As you can see, we have been really busy the last few weeks. Our latest adventure was a short trip to Washington D.C. last Saturday. It was a gorgeous fall day, perfect for taking in all of the sites. Abby loved seeing everything and did amazingly well in her stroller all day without a nap. She fell asleep as soon as we were back in the car driving home that night but held up extremely well outside all day. This was Abby and my second trip to D.C. and Jason's first and we had a great day visiting our nation's capitol.

We started our day by visiting the National Air & Space Museum. Here's Jason and Abby standing in front of a replica of Amelia Earhart's plane. We really enjoyed this museum, but our favorite part was probably visiting the special exhibit about "American History." The National Museum of American History is closed for renovations until next summer, but the little amount of stuff we saw inside the exhibit made us really excited to visit the actual museum when in reopens.

Here I am in front of George Washington's uniform and in front of one of the Sunstones from the Nauvoo Temple.
After visiting the museum, we headed over to the U.S. Capitol building and then made the 2-mile walk from the capitol building to the Lincoln Memorial, visiting the Washington Monument, the White House, the World War II Memorial, and the Korean War Memorial along the way.
Along our walk along the National Mall, Jason and I discussed who could be considered the most important president in U.S. History. Of course there would be many contenders, but I would vote Abraham Lincoln at the top of my list. He was an amazing man who was able to lead our country through a very turbulent time and unite a divided nation. I have a lot of respect for him.

Here's Abby and I at the top of the Lincoln Memorial overlooking the Reflecting Pool with the Washington Monument in the background. Our last site to visit was the Vietnam War Memorial. This memorial is always a difficult one for me because it is so very personal with all the names of those who died printed for all to see. My dad fought in Vietnam during the early stages of the war and still carries around some of the effects of it even today. I started to get a bit teary-eyed when we passed a big, burly man standing looking at a name on the wall with tears rolling down his cheeks and I pretty well lost it when I overheard another young man tell one of the tourist guides as he pointed to a name on the wall, "That's my dad." Wow, I'm getting teary just writing about it again. The Vietnam War is so controversial and one which many people, including myself, do not completely understand. I hope the lesson we learned from it though, is that even if we may not agree with the reasons behind a war, we must always honor and respect those men and women who stood up for freedom when their country called.

We had a wonderful day in D.C. and we look forward to going back soon. I am so proud to be a citizen of the United States and I love this country so much. God Bless the USA!!