Washington DC

Rob and I took a little trip out to our nations capital this past weekend. It was great to get away and just enjoy seeing some of the sites that neither of us have seen for quite some time. We left Jack at home with his Aunt Jeni and he had a lot of fun with out us! We did miss our little buddy, but we were so glad he wasn't with us this time. We did a lot of walking, a lot of taking the Metro, a lot of stopping to look at things in museums, and those are just not the things Jack enjoys doing, or any 2 1/2 year old for that matter. We were in DC for the end of the Cherry Blossom Festival and most of the blossoms were off of the trees but here we are with one of the trees that we saw that still had a lot of blossoms on it. I guess we missed the full blooms by one week, oh well.

Rob with Thomas Jefferson.

This is Rob in front of the Washington Monument. We were experimenting with some night pictures and this one isn't the best, but it is fun to see the monuments at night.

Me in front of the capital. We had a great private tour with an intern from our congressman Rob Bishop's office. A friend arranged for us to have a tour at the last minute and I am so glad that it worked out. Congress was not in session so it was less crowded but we had a lot of fun. I have been to DC but it was when I was in Jr. High, so I have seen the capital before but as we were walking on the Mall I was really struck with how grateful I am to live in the United States. I also was thinking a lot about September 11, 2001 and how the plane that went down in Pennsylvania was probably headed toward the capital and the people who were on that plane truly were heros. There are so many heros from that day and after but I was specifically grateful for those people on Flight 93 who in all likely hood protected a major symbol of our country and its history.

Rob in front of the Supreme Court.

This painting is "Le Jardin de Vetheuil" by Monet and hangs in the National Gallery of Art. There were many other beautiful works of art that I really enjoyed seeing there.

Rob with Wilbur, (or maybe Orville) Wright at the Air and Space Museum. Rob is like a kid in a candy store as soon as we stepped into that place. It is like there are so many things to see he doesn't know where to begin. I must say that I am always pretty impressed about what he knows about airplanes, and all things flight oriented.

The entire Smithsonian Institution is great. I really loved that they are free and that we can just roam in and out of them. One thing I learned from Rob was that the man who the Smithsonians are named after he was a British citizen and had never even been to the United States, but he donated his money when he died to the US so it could set up a way to preserve history.

This is me in front of a very large statue of Pres. John F. Kennedy. We went to the Kennedy Center for a play Sheer Madness on Friday night and that was a lot of fun.