Our last day in D.C.

We went to Ford's Theater today! It was Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday the same day. I guess we just missed President Obama's rededication of the theater. The box where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated was draped with a flag. A band dressed up like Union soldiers played music. They played songs like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", the song that was played at his funeral procession, and some of his favorite songs. The park ranger talked about the assassination of President Lincoln (and a lady was signing to deaf people in the audience while he was talking). And then school kids performed some of Abraham's famous speeches like "The Gettysburg Address". After that we went across the street to see the house where Lincoln died. We headed back to our hotel to pick up Dad and get some lunch. Then it was off to the National Air and Space Museum. The Wright brothers' plane and fighter planes were hanging from the ceiling! I wanted to see the Apollo 13 capsule, but I got to see the Apollo 11 capsule instead. We got to see a P-51 from World War II. The cabinet full of bullets from World War II was really cool! There was a simulator where you could land planes on an aircraft carrier--I crashed every time I tried it. There was also the cockpit of a jet just like the one we flew to D.C. on so I had to go in there and check it out. They had interesting short movies throughout the museum that were educational. For a sourvenir I got some playing cards with fighter planes on the fronts of them. Then we had to catch our plane. Thank you for following me on our journey in Washington D.C.

My Second Day

My day today started with a meeting with Senator Mike Johanns from Nebraska. He was there for a few minutes before he had another meeting. I was deleting some pictures from my camera and learned by accident how to put on my flash. It flashed Dad in the eye and he jumped. Then we walked over to the Supreme Court. I took pictures inside and ouside. Dad went with us for that part and then he had to go to meetings. I took a picture of the Capitol. Then we headed to Union Station. After that we had to meet up with someone from Senator Johanns's office for tickets to tour the Capitol inside. I took a lot of pictures in there. The rotunda was the best! There was a huge picture on top. It was of George Washington surrounded by thirteen women and by the women there was Lady Liberty. We got to see the place where Abraham Lincoln's desk sat when he was a Senator. I liked the story of how President Andrew Jackson almost got assassinated while in the Capitol but the guy's pistols misfired. We got to see the 209 year old room of the Capitol, the only room that didn't burn down during the War of 1812. Next we went to the National Archives. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence were there. After lunch we hopped on the subway and went to Arlington National Cemetery. It was a quick trip because we had to eat supper with Dad. I took pictures of the Kennedy brothers' graves and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (we missed the changing of the guard there). Mom also took my picture near Robert E. Lee's house since we are related to him. After supper we went on a tour of the memorials and other places at night. We got home after 11 PM! We also got rained on while at the Lincoln Memorial. It was a great day!

We are here!

Today my family and I got up really early and boarded two different flights before getting here to Washington D.C. The second plane was huge compared to the first one! The clouds were really cool and puffy from up in the air! When we were starting to land at Ronald Reagan Airport, we could see the Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson memorials plus the Capitol building. We missed seeing the Pentagon. Our hotel is right by the Air and Space Museum, which we plan to visit on Thursday. It's not too far from the Capitol, either. We did lots of walking today and it was quite interesting because the memorials looked a lot bigger in person! It was hard to take pictures because they looked so small in the camera but they were so big in real life. It was a fun day!