D.C. Day 5

Hey kids! Our trip is almost finished, but there are many more pictures to come. So enjoy some pictures from our day today and I'll post some video later when I have more time (it's already after midnight!).

Daddy's day began early with some of his Blue Ribbon Award things so I had the whole morning to see some more sites by myself!

I went on a walking tour of a few memorials we hadn't seen yet...

My first stop was at the World War II Memorial. Here's the flag that greets you as you walk up - do you know what kind of flag the black one is?


There are tons of water features. They are called the rainbow fountains. Can you see the pillars in the back? Each pillar has a wreath on it and there is one pillar to represent each state in our country + one for each American province - that's a lot of pillars!
These trees create a beautiful walkway between the WWII Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.


Here's Lincoln during the day - boy that's a lot of steps!

Right next to Lincoln is the Vietnam War Memorial. These three soldiers greet you as you walk down to see the long black reflecting wall of names.

Here's the famous Vietnam Wall. I remember when they opened this memorial. I was a kid in school just like you!



After the memorials I walked over to the White House. There is a small park out behind the White House called Lafayette Park. In the middle of the park is this statue of a guy on a horse. Can you see who's name is on this statue?
And there's the White House.

Boy, it was so magnificent. I felt so patriotic standing in front of this house where so many men have lived and served our country.

After my patriotic moment it was time to return to the hotel for daddy's Blue Ribbon celebrations. Check out the name of this street. It was a Jackson day! His name was everywhere!


I got to see daddy receive his most special award today. (Remember, that's the whole reason we got to come to Washington D.C. in the first place!) He got to hear this guy speak to the room full of hundreds of teachers and principals. His name is Arne Duncan. He helps make lots of important decisions about education in the United States of America.
As soon as he was done speaking they began to pass out the awards. Here's daddy and one of the teachers that works at his school just after they got their award. Do they look happy or what?!


After the Blue Ribbon Awards were finished we took a ride on the metro (D.C. subway system) over to Arlington National Cemetery. There are thousands of people buried here that have died serving our country. This first set of graves is the Kennedy family. That flame burns all the time and never goes out - it's called the Eternal Flame.

We walked down to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There is one soldier that guards the tomb all day long. He walks back and forth in front of the tomb - taking 21 steps and then waiting 21 seconds before he walks back the other way. Back and forth and back and forth he walks - 21 steps, 21 seconds, 21 steps, 21 seconds.... for a whole hour he does this until another soldier comes in to take his place.

There were some beautiful leaves here - we had to take a picture.
This memorial is in honor of the people that were on the space shuttle Challenger back in 1986. I remember watching the shuttle in my 2nd grade classroom on TV and I remember it being a big deal because there was a teacher on board! I don't think I understood what was happening on that day because we were all expecting them to take off and then go land on the moon or something, but they never did make it - the shuttle blew up and all the people inside died. It was a very sad day.


Here's daddy looking out at the cemetery (note the pretty leaves in the background).
A couple of last pictures before the sun went down....



We headed back to the hotel after the cemetery to get ready for one last adventure - the Washington D.C. Temple! We took our first cab ride ever out to the temple.

Look how magnificent it looks against the night sky. Wow.

There is some beautiful stained glass along the front of the building.
We got to do a session all by ourselves. The rest of the temple was almost completely empty except for a few workers. It was beautiful in there. Both of us had always wanted to go inside and we finally got the chance to do it. What a great way to end the night.