A Day in D.C.

Following my cousin's graduation, we made a one-day visit to D.C.   There is so much to see in D.C..  We decided to go to some places that we had not visited before.  Our first stop was the National Archives.  Here we saw some of the major documents of our country- including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  Photography was not allowed in most parts of the building, so we only have a picture of the outside.  There were a lot of people inside of this building.  I'm sure it gets even crazier as the summer wears on.  









Our second stop was Ford's Theater.  Hannah's family went to D.C. last year and this was one of the places that they recommended we check out.  It was really cool.  Before entering the theater the kids got an activity pack to be a Junior Ranger.  They worked so diligently during the entire exhibit to find answers to their activities so that they could earn their badge.  I love it when places have things like this because it really helps the kids get involved (and it frees me up to enjoy the exhibit myself).

 We saw the actual gun that John Wilkes Booth used to shoot Lincoln, and we saw the theater box where he was shot.  I usually hate sharing a tour with school kids on a field trip, but it actually worked out well for once.  The teacher of this group of kids stood in the front of the theater and started teaching her class about the assassination.  She was a good speaker and her lesson was very interesting.  All of the other visitors stopped to take a seat and listen to her lesson.  The park ranger eventually had to stop her because the tour was a walk-through and no one was walking through.

 Our ticket for Ford's Theater also allowed us to enter the house where Lincoln died, which is across the street from the theater.  There is a museum beside the house where they have a four-story column of every book ever written about Abraham Lincoln.

 A bonus about visiting Ford's Theater is that it is located right next door to the Hard Rock Cafe.  We made sure to make a stop here.

While we were eating, we discussed how we would like to spend the rest of our day.  The kids wanted to go to one of the Smithsonian Museums.  After a short discussion, they chose the American History Museum.  We haven't spent much time in this museum before, so it was a good choice.  We didn't have time to see every room, so we focused on the innovations room and the Americana room.  We also saw the original Star Spangled Banner (it's huge).  

 Olivia's favorite museum finds included a Tesla motor (she did a project on him last year), and the ruby slippers.

Owen liked seeing an Elmo puppet.

 I took a picture of Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves not knowing that he would pass away that same evening.

 Daddy had never seen the WWII Memorial, so we made the long trek down the mall so that he could check it out.  This was our last stop. We were pretty tired, so we headed to our hotel where we pretty much fell out from exhaustion.  D.C. is a lot of walking.