Whew this has been a busy week! Sorry I had no blog posts up! Part of the reason why I have been so busy was because we went to Washington D.C. two weekends ago. Our church always does a staff retreat and spouses get to come along. So this year, the staff all went to D.C. for one day and we had a blast!
We wanted to see as much as possible in one day (there is sooooo much to see!) so we started bright and early by riding the metro into Union Station, which is absolutely beautiful! (pictured below). If you are a shopper there are a ton of shops there, but of course, we didn’t have time to shop because we only had one day!
We rode Old Town Trolleys around for the day, so we were able to get on the bus right from the Station! The trolley was awesome because 1. air conditioning 2. cuts down on walking and 3. you hear a ton of interesting history, and you can see all the major items in D.C. in one day! 
We started by riding past the capitol and other very important buildings (we stayed on the bus for all of this)
We then decided to get off at the Washington Monument stop. Sadly you can’t go inside until 2018 because the elevator is still being fixed from the damage an earthquake caused.
From there we walked to the World War II monument…
And then from there we were able to walk to the Lincoln Memorial. From the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial it is about one mile, so not a bad walk at all!
At this point we were getting really toasty, and Todd took this candid of me, probably talking about how hot it was, and how badly I wanted water!
So we ended up finding a little kiosk near the bus stops and bought lunch and some very over priced bottled water! lol 😉 I will say, if you are touring D.C. a lot of the historical sites don’t have any food or drinks around them, so I would pack a snack and a drink in case you need it!
We then got back on the Trolley and rode around till we got to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (free). We knew the museum was huge so we decided to take the highlight tour…and I would not recommend this. I thought the tour would take us through the highlights of the museum, but instead it took us to random pieces that the man giving the tour thought was super special. I would go on this, if you have been there before, and want some special stories.
They have Julia Child’s kitchen there which was really neat to see. Here is Todd next to a real life size Julia! 😉
We ended up breaking off from the tour, because I was very excited about seeing the pop culture part, and the First Ladies dress section, both of which our tour guide did not think were highlights!
We saw real life size Sesame Street Puppets, which was a big part of my childhood!
And Todd got to see real Indian Jones props!
I also really enjoyed the dishware that each first lady has picked out!
We then made our way right next door to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum (free)! I felt like I had walked right into Night at the Museum, which was so neat!
This museum is so much more interactive than the other, and had so much to see (we only stayed an hour)! I will say that the museum is very evolution heavy, because we believe in creation, some of this was disheartening, but we still made the most of it!
If you understand why I ‘m holding a pack of gum up here, then props! 😉
One part of this museum I really loved was the mineral and rocks exhibit! I had never seen so many beautiful exhibits! I just wanted all my Earth Science students to be with me to see them all since we had just learned about rocks and minerals! Also, the Hope Diamond is housed here, and was a cool item to visit.
Afterwards, we got back on the Trolley and continued to ride, we took the tour all the way around to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Make sure though you actually grab a brochure because if you want to go to Arlington, you have to get on a different bus, and we totally missed this fact! lol
We were going to go to the National Archives, and probably could have made it in time before it closed, but at this point we were all exhausted and super hungry for dinner.
We walked to a cute pizza place called We the People (The name got me).
The pizza was delicious, and I loved that they made speciality sodas. Todd and I tried the Cherry Limeade soda that was yummy!
Afterwards, we went back to the Metro and rode to our hotel! We were exhausted but had a great time! I am definitely anxious to go back at some point to see some of the other places less frequently visited!
The group minus a few! 😉
We were so thankful for this opportunity and loved getting to spend time with everyone that went!
Thanks for stopping by! What should we check out next time we go?
-Kasey