Washington D.C. + Tenth Anniversary = FUN!

For our tenth anniversary we conned (er, I mean CONVINCED) our parents into watching the boys for four whole days while we jetted off to our nation's capital for some much-needed time together. Here is our trip by the numbers:

• Number of different types of transportation taken over four days: 7 (car, plane, airport tram, subway, Segway, bike, taxi)
• Number of flights we nearly missed: 1 (after a sprint through the Minneapolis airport, they were ready to close the doors as we raced to the check-in!)
• Number of national memorials viewed: 5 (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, WW2, Vietnam)
• Number of miles walked: 40,000,000,456 (or at least it felt that way!)
• Number of times Amy whined that her feet hurt: 5,457 (or at least it felt that way to Nick!)
• Number of $20 Metro cards lost while on the Metro: 1 (Mine. Nice.)
• Number of Presidents seen: 0 (I can't believe he didn't come to greet me while I was in his house!)
• Number of important national documents viewed: 3 (Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Magna Carta)
• Number of times Amy had to be told to stop leaning on the glass while attempting to read the Declaration of Independence: 1 (Sorry, it's really faded and hard to read!)
• Number of Smithsonian Museums viewed: 4 (American History, Natural History, Portrait Gallery and Air & Space--my personal favorite was Natural History)
• Number of fancy-pants dinners eaten in celebration of 10 wonderful years: 1
• Number of times we didn't understand what people were saying to us because they were making no effort to speak English clearly: 467 (LOTS of people from LOTS of different countries working EVERYWHERE)
• Number of times Amy fell off her Segway: 0 (but I did run into a poor fellow Segway tourist--sorry lady!)

And here is our trip in pictures. Our first full day there we took a tour of the White House. Due to obvious security concerns we were not allowed to even carry cameras, let alone use them so I don't have any pictures of the inside of the White House. It IS very beautiful, though, and it was the highlight of the trip for me. Here's a picture of me in front of the White House that I took on our Segway tour.

Here's a Secret Service dude on the roof of the White House. I need to look into getting one of those for my house...













The second day we took in the National American History Museum. There is a lot of cool pop culture and historical items in this musuem, including a genuine C3PO costume that was used in Return of the Jedi. The boys thought this picture was so cool when we showed them at home!



















Here is the stove pipe hat Lincoln was wearing the night he was shot.



















And a pair of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz

















The third day we decided to do lunch in Chinatown.














And that afternoon we took our Segway tour. The Segways are a lot of fun, although I would not recommend the tour if you actually want to learn about the stuff you're seeing. We pretty much zoomed right by stuff or just stopped to take pictures. Luckily we had already seen most of it in detail so it was a nice overview.




















Here we are at the Washington Monument



















I had to include this picture because our Segway tour guide shared with us the "dumbest question" he'd ever heard on a tour. Some guy apparently asked "How to they get all the flags to go in the same direction?" Ha!














Here we are on Capitol Hill. This is the approximate place where the Presidential inaugurations are held.

























































Here is the view of the National Mall from the Capitol. (There was an event going on while we there, which is why there are all those white tents.)
















On our last day in Washington, we got up early since we still had lots to see. However, DC had other plans--there was a race called the Army 10 Miler going on and most of the streets around the National Mall were closed down. We decided to try anyway but got hung up on the wrong side of the Mall with the runners in between us and what we wanted to see. This was a BIG race and there were a lot of people in it. If we had sat there waiting for them all to pass we would have been there for over an hour. SO we briefly joined the race and ran diagonally with them to get across the street! Got the blood pumping early in the morning!




















After the race we slowed it down a bit and headed to the World War II Memorial and then down to the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool. As you can see by this picture, there has been a bit of a drought and the Pool is really low. It was pretty gross, actually!


























Here is the spot at the Lincoln Memorial where Dr. King gave his speech...














Here is the statue of Linclon, which is beautiful! The funny part about this picture was that my camera kept trying to use the red-eye reduction on Abe. Pretty sure his eyes won't come out red!

Next was a visit to the Vietnam Memorial. Nick's dad fought in this war so it had a big impact on both of us.

Then we found some fantastic bikes to rent and rode those up to the Washington Memorial. (Tip to those thinking of visiting DC soon--rent these bikes! They are awesome and CHEAP!)

And our last stop before we got on the plane to go home was the National Air and Space Museum. Nick LOVED this museum. I think it's some sort of male phalic thing...I wasn't that inspired. Overall, it was a FANTASTIC trip! A special thanks to the gracious souls who watched our boys while we were gone! :)