Family Vacation, Days 3-5

After two whirlwind days in Washington, D.C., we decided to take the next few days for a little down-time. First we finished out our D.C. part with a trip to the National Zoo. It was hard to believe it was free for all we got to see! It was a ton more walking than we thought!
We saw elephants.

We saw lots of monkeys. (Or we acted like them...)

Pandas were a favorite, even though we only saw one, and it was far away.

And one last family photo before Grandma & Grandpa headed back home.

Then we drove about an hour to a new Air BnB, in a city near Baltimore. It was a good deal and we thought it would be nice to get away from the bigger city for a few days at the end of our vacation, and see different things. This house was really kid-friendly and they even had out toys for the kids to play with. They had a huge bedroom of their own, tons of Legos, and even movies to enjoy.

We spent a whole day not doing much. We did enjoy fast food lunch at Chick Fil a and then went to a playground, but mostly just played around the house. Then the following day we went into Baltimore, the Inner Harbor area and went to a Science Museum. The kids really enjoyed this even more than the one in D.C. that we went to. There was many hands-on exhibits here.

Andrew enjoyed being a paleontologist.

Jacob sat in a dinosaur footprint.

Abi lay on a bed of nails! 

And then built a giant tower of foam bricks.

Of course Jacob always loves the water table and played there at least half an hour. There was a lot of other fun things they enjoyed, too!

And we spent a little time taking in the sun on the Harbor for the last part of our epic family vacation!

Washington, DC Day 2

On our 2nd day in Washington, DC, we headed to the main purpose we even went to DC: The Museum of the Bible! We got a couple free tickets awhile back and were really looking forward to this, as we heard great things. It did not disappoint. It would be hard to tell about all we saw, but we agreed you needed at least a full day to see everything in the museum, if not more.

We were already in awe just in the entrance-way, with the moving images on the ceiling. We were told to go to the 3rd floor first to see a movie. It was more than just a movie-- it was an experience! You get up and walk through the story of the Old Testament. There was things to see all around and it truly brought the stories to life. There was one for the New Testament as well.

There was a whole floor dedicated to the history of the Bible through time, and we saw lots of interesting Bibles. We didn't have nearly enough time to see them all.

We saw how scrolls were made & read.

Then we found the Kids' area. They had fun carnival-type games to bring the Bible stories to life for the kids.

A really nice museum volunteer used her membership to bless our family with tickets to the Life of Jesus virtual reality exhibit. We put VR goggles on and saw all the places of Jesus life in 3-D, surrounding us on all sides. It was really neat and felt like we were actually in Israel. We were so thankful to that lady. 

The bottom floor had a special Illumination exhibit with tapestries that glowed in different colors based on the lighting in the room. It was nothing like I had ever seen before. The images were from the book of Revelation.

And a quick photo with Grandma & Grandpa to commemorate the really great museum!

After the Museum of the Bible, we made a quick trip to the Archives. This is where the actual Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights are kept. We were not allowed to take photos in the building. We wanted to get in and out quickly but it ended up taking 30-45 minutes to wait in line for security to enter, and it was a hot day! We were glad we saw it, though, and still had time to make it to the Air & Space Museum for a whirlwind tour.

Again there was too much to see in just an hour and a half but we saw rockets, we saw Amelia Earhart's plane, we saw the Wright Brothers plane, a rover that had landed on Mars, The Spirit of St. Louis that flew across the Atlantic, Neil Armstrong's spacesuit, a blimp, and so much more. I don't know how much we actually absorbed, but we came, saw & conquered.

Day 2 may have only been 5 miles of walking but it was still full. The kids said their favorite by far was the Museum of the Bible. We ended with a trip to McDonalds for a refreshing ice cream before heading back to our house once more.

Washington, DC Trip Day 1

This year our epic family vacation was to Washington, DC & Baltimore. We just discovered the wonders of AirBnB for cheap lodging, so we booked a house in each location way back in March. For less than the cost of a hotel room, we can get our own house to stay in, with separate bedrooms and a kitchen to cook our own food! Win-win! So we set out on a Monday on the 7 hour drive. We stopped at a mall on the way to eat in the Food Court. The kids had to get a photo next to Steve from Minecraft in the Microsoft store.

We got to our first place at around 8pm. We were lucky enough to have my mom & dad join us there for a few days. They had their own room in the basement. The house was only 20 minutes from downtown DC, which was perfect for fitting in full days of walking around! We started the day by waiting in line to get tickets to go up in the Washington Monument. It was about a 30 minute wait, and then we were on our way to the Monuments. 

 The first stop was the World War 2 Memorial. This is a fairly new one and the kids enjoyed the fountains. We also liked the monuments representing each state. It was quite convenient that NC was right next to Vermont!

It was quite a long walk to the Lincoln Memorial, even though we could see it from the WW2 one. We stopped by the Vietnam Veterans on the way. Brett and Grandpa stopped to chat with some guys who were passing out Christian tracts. They do this once a week. I enjoyed watching some veterans, including several in wheelchairs, seeing the monuments, some for the first time. It kind of brings it all to life.

Then we made the trek up to the top of the Lincoln Memorial. I don't know if the kids fully appreciate the words of the Gettysburg Address on the wall but I thought it was very interesting and they did like the big statue.

We headed back down and stopped by the Korean War Memorial. The faces of the soldiers are imprinted into the wall. I somehow captured these two veterans in front of the wall that read "Freedom is not free." The weight of that didn't hit me till later.

After lunch from a food truck (since the one we packed we left in the car, which was way too far from where we were), we tried to get as close to the White House as possible for a good photo. This was what you got! It was super crowded on the sidewalk so we had about 30 seconds to get a good shot, and this was as close as you could get. We were told the other side was an even worse view, due to construction, so we were satisfied that we saw it, and headed to the White House Visitor's Center. 

We were not prepared for all the security in the government buildings, but we made it and the White House Visitor's Center was pretty cool. They have a scale model of the house, they had several video kiosks where you could see inside some of the rooms, and lots of exhibits about events that have happened in the White House history. There was also a video some of us watched.

We then made our way back to the Washington Monument for our 2:00 tickets. We got to go right in after security and go up the elevator 500 feet to the top. It was an incredible view! We saw the Pentagon, the Mall and most of the other sites from way up above. It was one of our favorite things of the day and worth the wait in line for the free tickets.

By  now we'd walked at least 6 miles and were pretty tired, but determined to get the most out of our day. So we headed toward the Smithsonian museums and the Capitol area. We made a quick visit to the Smithsonian Castle, which basically just has information, snacks, and-- we found out later-- a memorial to Mr. Smithsonian, himself, who interestingly enough never even visited America. We found out he made a generous donation with the stipulation that no money be charged to the public to visit his collections.

Then we visited the Museum of Natural History. It was a highlight for Andrew the dinosaur lover. There was so much to see and we only had an hour or two, but we crammed in what we could. I wasn't impressed with the amount of "old earth" and evolution ideas, but that is to be expected. There was in fact a whole exhibit about the evolution of man.

One of our favorite areas was the gem room. There were tons of expensive gems and diamonds of all kinds, including the valuable Hope Diamond, which is like 45 carats, and crown jewels given to the Queen by Napoleon.

 We also saw Ancient Egyptian artifacts to go along with our studies in History right now. Homeschool win!

The first day was incredibly full and by the time we got back to the house at 6pm, we had walked over 8 miles and seen so many interesting things! And it was only the first day!