DC Do-Over, Part Uno

You may remember that a little over a year ago, Matt and I were planning a fun and exciting vacation to Washington, D.C. with his folks. That is, until his dad had to have emergency heart surgery, making it impossible for him to join us on the trip. We couldn't cancel our plans, so we modified our trip and went anyway. But we always intended on rescheduling. Well, reschedule we did. Early last month, we made our way to the land of politics and history!

On the flight out, I received some exciting news: I got a teaching job! It's in the district I've worked in for the last few years, and I'll be working with kids and colleagues who I know really well. So, I'm excited. It certainly took a weight off my shoulders, and I was able to just relax and enjoy our vacation. After we made it to our hotel (Georgetown Suites) on Wednesday night, we went to Clyde's Restaurant to celebrate!

The next day, our real vacation could start.

Day One:

On Thursday, we started out at Arlington Cemetery, where we saw the JFK grave site and the Tomb of the Unknowns, as well as the U.S.S. Maine memorial, Audie Murphy's grave, and the Challenger memorial.

Then we hopped on our little tourmobile and made our way to the National Mall. Rex thought it was pretty cool to be able to look one way and see the U.S. Capitol, and look the other way to see the Washington Monument.

We finished our day by checking out the National Archives (where we saw the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution - super cool old documents!), the National Gallery of Art's sculpture garden, and the Smithsonian Castle.

We were pretty tired, but after a delicious dinner at Don Lobos Mexican Grill (where the waitresses don't let you move anything on the table), we felt rejuvenated enough to explore the C&O Canal in historic Georgetown.

Day Two:

Our big plans for Friday involved touring the White House. After visiting Union Station...

...we made our way to our tour. Of course, we couldn't take pictures in the white house, but it was very cool to see the fancy rooms that had so much history. After the tour, we utilized the nifty (if slow) tourmobile again to make our way to the other DC monuments.

Capitol in the distance.

Jefferson and Lincoln memorials.

Vietnam Memorial (and some ducks in the park by the Vietnam Memorial).

World War II Memorial.

Washington Monument from the World War II Memorial.

After dinner at home (in our suite!), Debi took us on a walking tour of historic Georgetown. We saw some historic buildings, including one of the homes of John and Jacqueline Kennedy, before walking back to our hotel along the canal.

Day Three:

Saturday was Capitol day. We took a tour so that we could see the rotunda, and then we walked down the tunnel to the Library of Congress.

Finally, it was museum time! And there were lots of museums to choose from. Rex chose the Air and Space Museum first.

After a stop at the National Botanic Gardens (lots of pretty plants) and the Capitol reflecting pool.

Rex was in heaven in the Air and Space Museum.

We had a calm dinner at our hotel because we had to get up extra early the next day for...

Day Four

But I'm going to leave that for my next post!