The National Mall

 By the time we left the Natural History Museum, it was getting pretty late.  Since we were right there at the National Mall, we decided to walk around and let the kids check it out.  Olivia was confused by the word "mall" and kept asking where the stores were.  We had to tell her it wasn't that type of "mall".  Since the Washington Monument was the largest thing around, we started walking toward it.  We kept going and saw the new World War II Memorial.  It was cool to be here on this day because the following day was June 6th,  D-day.  It looked like they were setting up for something in the grassy area by this memorial.  We didn't go down to the Lincoln Memorial because the reflecting pool was being renovated and they had blocked off a lot of the sidewalks.  Instead we walked toward the White House, but we couldn't get that close because there was some kind of event taking place.  We could see a lot of people milling about on the lawn, and there were snipers on the roof.  As we were walking toward the White House,  Brian commented that it looked like the President was having a party (to which Olivia whined "Mama, I don't want to go to that party").  Don't worry, Olivia, I doubt we're invited.  We ended up having supper at the Hard Rock and were surprised to see that it was right next to Ford's Theater.  We hadn't planned to see that, so we didn't go in.  It didn't look like it was open anyway.  Still, we were excited to see the outside of this historic building.  This turned out to be a nice afternoon, and we were so glad to have Brandon as our personal tour guide.