Tips & Tricks of DC

Today was such a LONG day! I woke up early and drove to Idaho Falls to pick up little Will. I missed him soo much! The poor little guy was sick pretty much the whole time we were gone. Thank goodness for my Mom and Aimee who took such good care of him.

I was prepared for him to pretty much ignore me when I got there and I was spot on! It was funny :) After about 5 minutes though he was pretty clingy to me so that made me feel better. We got home and Will was so happy to be home again too! He just kept running around and being silly.
We did get some great news about our Travelocity fiasco. Before we checked out yesterday Hilton ended up taking off about $120 of our current bill and we finally got word that Travelocity is going to refund us about the same amount. So all in all were still out about $200 but that is still better than $350! A BIG THANK YOU to Stacy for being so diligent and getting things worked out for us! I am pretty sure I will NEVER make that mistake again :)

Some things I want to remember for our next trip to DC and anyone planning a trip there is:
~Pay more money and stay closer to The National Mall or a Metro stop. Taxi's are expensive!
~Plan on taking the Metro everywhere. It is super easy and inexpensive.
~Either plan on spending all day in a museum, or plan on just stopping briefly at all the main points of interest.
~Most everything is FREE when you get to DC!
~Take the Metro to and from the Airport.

I LOVED Washington DC. There was so much to do and see and we loved all the history there. I cant wait to go back and take Will :)

DC Day 6, Our Final Day

Today we still had almost a full day in DC before we had to head to the airport for our 5pm flight. We started out bright and early for our 9am tour of the State Capital.

Mike looking off into the far distance:

This next set of pics is absolutely HILARIOUS! Keep your eye on the capital in the background :)

Finally we are smart and switch sides!

Ha ha! You have to look back through them again and look at Mike's facial expression change in each pic. I am dying laughing as I look through them again! Classic!

Inside the Capital:

The Rotunda:

For Utah's statue non-other than Brigham Young~GO UTES!

Exiting our lovely tour:

Then we walked through the underground tunnel to
The Library of Congress:

I absolutely LOVED the architecture at The Library of Congress! It was so gorgeous and definitely my favorite building we saw!

The Supreme Court:

Mike being strong, like the law :)

Inside the Supreme Court:

We absolutely LOVED using the Metro. It was so easy and so cheap!

Our last stop was the Old Post Office Tower:

Sadly the elevator was closed so we didn't get to go up and see the amazing view everyone told us about :(

In a gift shop:

Our last few minutes :(

Soo sad to leave!

But still having fun!

The Metro to the Aiport:

And immediately back to work when we land in Salt Lake:

This kid LOVES to work!

Mike also suffered some pretty nasty blisters today:

But man are we glad to be home! Now off to get Will in the morning!
I CANT WAIT!

DC Day 5

We started today out even earlier since we had our reservations for going up inside the Washington Monument at 9am. The Metro was empty, which was kinda nice for a change!

Washington Monument is so huge!

The weather was even worse today!

Inside the Washington Monument:

Our lovely view:

Okay so our view was pretty bad because of the rain!

But we still liked it:

Then we spent a few hours at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was honestly pretty disturbing. I am glad we went, but I cant get a lot of the graphic images out of my mind. It is hard to believe that people actually went through that and were able to survive. I think if I had experienced this museum before I had Will, it wouldn't have affected me as much. Things just change when you imagine having to watch your child suffer the way they did. My favorite part was at the end of the exhibit they had a video playing with clips from survivors telling there story. I cried and cried. The whole thing shook me up a lot.

Then we went to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

TMNT:

I loved this, Are YOU missing from this picture?

Mike followed the rules:

This was funny:

Get it? Cuz Mike is a 'traveling salesman'. Ha ha guess ya had to be there!

Wow I posed pretty darn close!

And old Peterbuilt:

(just for you Dad :)

And the Ruby Slippers:

(just for you Mom :)

We also got to see a bunch of other really cool things: Julia Child's kitchen, Kermit the frog, tons of old cars, trucks, trains, and boats, First Ladies Dresses, The Star Spangled Banner (the original flag that inspired the song), and the list goes on and on!

Then it was off to the National Archives:

Soo cool to see!

We found a wish pond and made a wish for all of us:

Then decided to check out Chinatown:

Mike's GQ pose:

Chinatown was kinda waste of time when you compare it to the San Fran Chinatown. Definitely not a must see if your headed to DC.

T0day was another super busy day and we are beat! Night night!