Buckle up...

It was a LONG ride! but well worth it for all the history and fun we were able to squeeze in with work! We headed toward the East Coast and the beginning of our country.

Our first stop was Washington DC.

This is a view of the city from Arlington National Cemetery.
We ended up here first just going with the flow!
It was amazing to see the sacrifices that have been made for us to be free Americans!

Huge beautiful grounds and much was in bloom, bright green reminding us of springtime and our freedom to enjoy it!

We arrived around the cherry blossom festival time and everything was beautiful!

Even got to enjoy TULIPS!!!

Once we found parking by the plaza, we began at the Roosevelt Memorial (but failed to get pictures).

We then walked (we thankfully had 2 scooters along which worked great to keep the younger two moving along!) to the Lincoln Memorial a very stately sight (no pun intended for the construction barrel!)
Very amazing to be there and grasp the hugeness of it!
As you can see the younger boys are wondering if this is all there is????
The view from there was incredible especially considering our drive the day before had been alot of raining/foggy weather! THANK YOU LORD for a sunny, dry warm day!

Next we walked by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. Seeing all the names made all of us realize how many have given that we may be free -- THANK YOU!!!

The kids were impressed with all the notes, flags and flowers left by the wall.


As we walked around the WWII memorial we found a nice spot for a picture!

Right between two M states!!!The kids were getting warm at this point and thought the fountain looked pretty good!

We pulled them away and continued down the mall making our way to the Washington Monument.



We really took this picture!
it looks like a postcard with such a beautiful blue sky the monument looked incredible!


hard to get the kids and the monument this worked pretty well
down and up all at the same time!


Brought up our study of obelisks from a few years ago :) always learning!


from there we could see the capital buildings to the East (behind the girls, but we were starting to slow down so didn't attempt to walk that far!) To the north we could also see the white house from there so we headed that way.


Since we didn't get our background checks in 6 months ahead, we weren't able to go into the white house. It was ok, the kids feel sorry for the Obama girls being in the middle of a city and yet a yard that everyone watches. Always having to have secret service with you or watching you didn't sound too fun to them either!
A picture through the fence then it was time to head back.

We finished up at the Jefferson Memorial to the South of the Washington monument. Once again the size of the statues is amazing!
Part of the Declaration of Independence.


That is it NO MORE PICTURES!!!

They were really tired out!
we likely walked between 4 and 5 miles!!! Z said "really mom I CAN'T walk anymore!" so i said "good thing we have your scooter!" he said" but my "scooter foot" (i love that!) doesn't work either!" then he tried pushing with his left foot and found that to be a distracting of enough challenge that he carried on not realizing he was moving again :) and this guys ALWAYS has energy :) yes he was running up the stairs!!!
the big sister who was willing to carry the scooter when we couldn't ride them.
The other sister was just taking it all in, she enjoyed seeing so many of the things we read about this year.

well this one about sums it all up -- a nice cold drink of water and rest the feet! we got a good night sleep and then were setting up the convention the next morning!

Well more to come!!!
the traveling Quaks