We had a really fun laid back Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I got to sing in the choir at church and loved doing that. It brought such a sweet spirit to my Christmas. I was very grateful to David for sitting with the children. We sang "Christmas light Christmas joy- The Christ of the Book of Mormon" It was such a special cantata.At home we built small lego toys did puzzles and really just enjoyed being together the rest of the day. The next morning we woke up and were off to DC! We haven't been there and have wanted to visit ever since we moved to North Carolina. We started at the National Zoo. Our favorite place there was the reptile house. We saw very large turtles, alligators and snakes, very cool!
Next we saw the Pandas!
Then the elephants which we missed seeing in May at the North Carolina Zoo.
Then we drove to the National Cathedral. On the way there we got to see all of the different embassy houses. We all enjoyed looking at the flags to see which country it was for.
The Cathedral had just closed when we got there, but at least we got to see the outside :)
Then we drove to the DC temple. Growing up in Salt Lake City we would go see the lights on temple square each year around Christmas. I haven't been able to take my kids there so I was excited to find that they do a similar celebration at the DC visitors center and temple grounds.
The temple was beautiful, I loved the stain glass windows.
We all liked looking at this tree with all of the dolls gifted from the different embassy's around the world. We got tickets for a short concert in the theater in the visitors center. It was Christmas songs done Japanese stile. It was very nice. The children did well considering how tired they were and how formal the concert was (thankfully there were lots of other children in the audience too. We went back to our hotel which was right by the pentagon, and ate a late dinner. They children were looking forward to being at the hotel all day so they were excited to finally be there. We swam in the swimming pool the last 15 minuets before it closed at 10:00pm Hazel had a rough night sleeping as she did most nights on this trip which makes perfect since because she grew 4 new teeth!
In the morning we enjoyed a really nice complimentary breakfast at the hotel and then started at the air and space museum. The big airplanes and rockets were great. I kept thinking of how much dad would LOVE it here because he really loves rockets and space.
The Botanical garden was one of our favorite places, it was so relaxing and fun.
Bridger loved the cactus.
Next we waited in line to enter the Museum of nature and science, the wait wasn't to bad and it was very worth it! One of my favorite exhibits was the best pictures from a nature picture contest. The pictures we so cool!
Then we saw some really beautiful and big butterfly's in the live butterfly pavilion.
The national gem collection was huge and super impressive. The boys LOVE gems so they were very engaged!
The hope diamond! In the butterfly exhibit they asked us to make sure we didn't leave with any butterflies on us. I asked them if any butterflies do get out, they said "yes, and can you guess where they go?....the hope diamond, the butterflies have fancy taste!"
We worked our way down the mall and made it to the Washington Memorial.
We had the double jogging stroller and all the boys where piled into it so that we could do all of that traveling on foot. At the end of the day we figured that we must have walked 6 miles at the least.
We got to hotel around 7, ate dinner and then did some more swimming. Hazel woke up early the next morning. I took her into the nice hotel lobby and she played on the floor and I read a bit of a cool book all about the white house. I learned some neat facts. One was that during one of the world wars they were sheep kept on the white house lawn. It was to help cut costs on lawn mowing. The wool from the sheep was sold and donated to war efforts. We had a nice time in DC and really enjoyed all that we got to see and learn. I will post tomorrow about the rest of our trip...NYC!!!!!
Then we drove to the DC temple. Growing up in Salt Lake City we would go see the lights on temple square each year around Christmas. I haven't been able to take my kids there so I was excited to find that they do a similar celebration at the DC visitors center and temple grounds.
The temple was beautiful, I loved the stain glass windows.
Then we saw some really beautiful and big butterfly's in the live butterfly pavilion.
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