The Washington Monument

My Fourth of July was muted, but my family had a great time. A friend of Philip’s- from way back when we were stationed in Houston – was in town with his children. We invited them to our house for the Freedom Fest on base, BBQ and to see the fireworks. We can see the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial and Capitol building from the base, so we have an excellent view of the fireworks.

All was set until I started feeling very tired and achy. I took a nap right after lunch and woke up feeling worse. I ended up sleeping through most of the afternoon. Philip, the children and our friends went to the Freedom Fest and a fun time until a pop-up thunderstorm soaked them to the skin and closed down the festival. You may have seen the people on the National Mall get caught in the storm with no where to go. Fortunately, they got home safely and we were able to provide clothes for our friends until theirs dried. The plan had been to walk down to the river for the fireworks, but the threat of a thunderstorm still loomed, so they drove instead. I had a perfect view from our house, so I didn’t miss out entirely.

Our friends had 4 extra tickets to the Washington Monument for today (Thursday) and they invited us along. We couldn’t pass that up!

The weather was wonderful! It was cool, almost cold when the wind blew and the skies threatened rain, but it never did. We rode the Metro there, which was a thrill for the children! Boo was very interested in learning to read the map and in tracking our progress. Once out of the Metro we had a bit of a walk to the Washington Monument, but it wasn’t too bad, even for Pumpkin Girl’s little legs.

We all really enjoyed looking out the windows at the top and finding all the local landmarks. We even picked out our base and the approximate location of our housing area.These pictures are all from the top of the Washington Monument:

Jefferson Memorial
the US Capitol

The Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial, Reflecting Pool and WW2 Memorial

The White House

After the Washington Monument we had lunch with our friends and then they left for their tour of the Capitol. We walked through the Mall, back towards the Metro stop. In front of the Smithsonian Castle is a carousel I’ve been wanting to take the kids to, so we stopped there. Much fun was had by all. Pumpkin and I practiced our princess waves, which we learned from “The Princess Diaries,” as we rode our royal horses.After the carousel, we popped in to the Smithsonian Castle, just to see what they had there. It’s mostly the information center for all the Smithsonian museums, but it’s a beautiful building, plus one wing was a sort of sampler of what the rest of the museums house. We even saw a pair of Kristi Yamaguchi’s skates. She has a very small foot. We were very surprised to find that this wing of the building resembles a gothic cathedral on the inside. Who knew?

And one last silly picture, just because.

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