monuments and memorials galor!

this day was by far the coldest (other than the next day, when it rained and then we were wet and cold) and of course this was the day we ended up walking all over the place from memorial to memorial. cools stuff to see thoughabove is the WWII memorial, which lies at the end of the reflecting pool, between the Lincoln memorial and the Washington monument. it was build in 2005 and i think is the firs (and only) 21st century monument build (thus far).
me and august looking at the memorial...hood on hot chocolate in hand haha...it was cold

Lincoln memorial

Washington monument

in the WWII memorial...the stars represent the soldiers

me at the end of the reflecting pool with the Lincoln memorial in the background

me and august in front of the Lincoln memorialthe family

now from the other side...at the Lincoln memorial looking back from where we had just come.

me and august walking a little over a mile in the pouring rain with a broken umbrella to get to one of the best art museums i've probably ever been to. this was right after we went to the Smithsonian, which was cool.

in the art museum...the architecture was amazing!

august in the museum. gary, betsy and sedona (betsy's friend) went to another museum because they don't like art (lame-os...it bores them), so it was just my mom, who was running around somewhere with katie and me and august.

they had one exhibit that was a bunch of manuscripts all dating back to the 1200's and 1300's! it was amazing that the colors were all so vivid and the condition of the documents are even better than our 200 yr. old constitution or any of those documents. how crazy! i also really enjoyed all the modern art that was downstairs (they have a Pollock, which was cool to see). by the way, Jackson Pollock was the guy with the famous splatter paintings in case you didn't know.

also the day it was raining we left for Virginia. august in front of the white house on our way out of dc.

walking around in the rain...

Jefferson memorial

in front of the national archives

look how huge the pillars are!!!

in front of the washington monument

can't you just tell gary loves me? :) haha

and me and my random videos, right? yep...i could totally do documentaries...they would be oh so interesting :)

Arlington National Cemetery and The Nation Archives

another metro picture...moving lit objects are just too much fun :) at Arlington

Kennedy's eternal flame

you have to understand, i think cemeteries and graves are really cool

sniffen...i thought it was a fun name

the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier

the national archives, where they keep it dark and and cold to protect the documents

the declaration of independence

the constitution
the signatures of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton two women who helped get women the rights we have today...very cool to see those signatures and the letters they wrote.

Magna Carta...got our country started! how cool is that?!? it's the actual one!

ridin' on the metro and the capital building!

well, now that i'm back at school and back from washington dc and virgina, i finally have a bit of time to post. the trip was amazing! i'm glad august could come and it was great to see so much stuff while we were there.

here is august pointing to where we will be headed one cold morning at the metro station
me and august in front of the sign...yay

metro! i would want to live in DC just so i could ride the metro every day haha
a light at the end of the tunnle...

katie!

in the capital building. the rotunda to be precise. oh, and random fact, we saw the actor that play the burgler from "Home Alone" in the capital building; he was standing behind us in line and people kept asking him for pictures...if they hadn't, i wouldn't have recognized him. haha

me and august and george washington?

capital!

rotunda

each state has two statues in the capital building...here is one of California's (Junipero Sera)

opps...had that zoomed in

on top of the bus, where it was FREEZING!!!

the capital was fun to visit and walk around. we also went to the spy musem on the first day we were there, but we dont' have any pics of that. it was a mission thing where you had to figure out stuff...cool set up.