Morning of Our First Day in DC

These last handful of days have thrown some unexpected curve-balls into my daily routine.  Friday I was planning on assisting my friend shoot a wedding when she called all upset.  Her Dad had a heart attack that morning and she was on her way to the hospital and could I please get to the church early to help shoot the getting ready pictures.  Thats how my weekend started and it didn't slow down from there.  I didn't end up getting home from the wedding until 8:30pm that night... it was a long day.  (Please keep her Dad in your prayers, he is still in the hospital.)

My time has been consumed with family and friends and honestly I haven't had much of a desire to hop on my stool, grab my computer and blog.  I have enjoyed my days quietly spent at home without the computer.  But I know that I have so much I want to share, so here goes a little more from our family trip to DC.

The first few nights My sister and I along with the kids stayed at my cousins house.  He and his wife live on the north side of DC, a short walk from a Metro station.  It took all of three minutes for us to walk in the door and Jilli fell in love with their little dog.  Her name... Izzy.  What a wonderfully patient little dog. She let the kids love all over her, especially my little animal lover.

We had quite a list of places that we wanted to visit the first few days in town.  The first day, our main objective was the Capital Building.  You have to get tickets to visit the Capital and ours was for noon.  To get to the Capital, we took the Metro into the city.  And let me tell you... our first peek at the Metro was a dizzying experience.  We bought our tickets, came to the top of the escalator and I about turned around and walked back to my cousins.  As I peered over the edge, I thought I would lose my breakfast, but, I had to be brave for my kids.  However, they didn't have any problem, it was me that was grasping the black handrail like my life depended on it.  We road that escalator all the way down (about 7 stories) found a bench (because my legs were still shaking) and waited for our train.

Laurie's picture

My parents were staying at a hotel and we were going to meet them at Union Station for our hike over to the Capital.  Union Station is amazing in itself.  I wish I had had more time to explore that.

Union Station (just a small part)

The weather was perfect every day we ventured into the city.  It was warm for December, Sunny skies, no wind.  The only thing that would have made it better, would have been the beautiful cherry trees in blossom.  Other than that, God gave us perfect exploring weather.

Outside of Union Station.  Construction was all over, you can see off in the distance the Capital Building.  This began our day of endless walking.

 We are getting closer....

 Almost to the visitors entrance.

 Look at how blue the sky was that day.  I didn't photoshop this picture at all.

Here is the last photo taken before we entered the visitors center.  After this photo we walked down some stairs and proceeded to go through security exactly like an airport.  We had to remove all our jackets, keys, cameras, bags... then if you set the machine off, you had to be checked with a wand.  Amazing how much things have changed since 9/11.

My next post I will share some pictures from the inside of the Capital.  We were allowed to take pictures there.  Which was really cool, since all of us, but my mother, had cameras to snap away during our tour.  

Blessings!!