Touring DC

I tell everyone this, yet no one believes me. The only times I have been to Washington, DC, other than homeschool trips to the Kennedy Center and the National Gallery of Art (or my yearly birthday zoo trip that was discontinued shortly after child #4 was born), was because we had friends or family in town that wanted to tour DC. Seriously. I live a quick metro ride away from our nation's capitol, yet I never go in unless others want to see something. So this was a fun weekend to have Sean's parents drive down for my graduation and see parts of DC with us!

We took the metro from Sean's house to get in. No one likes to park in DC. No major hiccups in traveling that way other than some maintenance work is going on, so they are down to 1 track and have to share (?!?!).

We got off at the Smithsonian stop and looked around for something to do. We saw the Smithsonian, but determined that it was too beautiful a day to go indoors. We went to the gardens behind the Smithsonian - they are actually a roof garden planted in shallow soil!! - before grabbing some DC lunch. Hot dogs, yum! Afterwards, we just walked down towards the back of the Capitol Building and took in the sights.

We saw a Military Exhibition and went inside. Very cool! Lots of pictures, but also lots of very expensive, very sweet equiptment. Like an infrared camera that could tell if we were blushing:P

We went on to the pool behind the Capitol. There was a mother duck with many babies surrounding her. Oh how cute!! We tried to determine who is on the top of the Capitol Building - Googling it now, we were nowhere close:P We walked around a statue of Grant as well and tried to determine if there was any specific significance to the 4 lions surrounding him:)

We ended up going into the Botanical Gardens, which was absolutely beautiful! We got separated for a bit, but found each other in the Medicinal Plant area. It was a beautiful place to be, and the weather was perfect!

We walked in the gardens outside for a bit, but slowly started making our way back to the metro. After we arrived back at the station in McLean, we went to the mall and got Chipotle. Yum! Perfect end of the day:)

We have already started planning out what we need to do next time we're there. This includes the history museums we missed, possibly the Newseum, the Nat'l Gallery of Art, who knows what else! :)