Past, Present & Future... Jefferson & Washington

That sums up Washington DC, right!?! It represents so much! In order to head in the right direction in our future, it's imperative we know our all important past as well as keep up to date with the present. The older boys studied American History this year and learned a lot about our country. But there is nothing like being right there and seeing the actual places and items that helped develop our country.  Hopefully this helps cement in their minds that what they are learning is REAL and APPLICABLE to their everyday life!

There's obviously a TON to see in DC and we couldn't get to it all, especially with the littles in tow. But we did what we could and now we'll know better where we want to focus the next time we go. A week didn't even seem like long enough to skim the surface but it definitely wetted our appetite for an encore! ;)

I will tell you right up front.... the last day literally WETTED our appetite (for sunshine that is!) lol :D

The first day we were spoiled with the chauffeur service of Commander Chism. He works fairly close to where we were going to be so he was kind enough to drop us off right at our first location and then picked us up at the end of the day. It was a huge help!

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Some of his most famous speeches.

They had this amazing timeline of Jefferson's life at the memorial. One of the most interesting facts is that he was responsible for his own education beginning at the age of 14. And not only did he excel with that responsibility but he became incredibly brilliant!



After the Jefferson memorial we had to hunt down a Starbucks, of course. So we followed our walking directions on our phone. Well then we come to a flight of stairs that we need to use to cross over a busy intersection. Oh but wait, there is one of these that we spot...

It appears to be for wheelchairs but why wouldn't it work for a double stroller? lol So we put the stroller on there, Reed has to come off or he might get squished. And then we attempt to figure out the contraption that's supposed to take the wheelchair (or stroller in this case) up the stairs easily and effortlessly for us. Hmmm....... it says something about a key!?! Who knows about these big city confangled things but I'm sure it's there to help us unknowing tourists, right? lol Well we finally figured out that we didn't have high enough clearance to use the DC wheelchair elevators. It was a hard pill to swallow but we acknowledged that our mere peasant city status wasn't going to get us far in this instance. So we pulled on our big boy & girl pants and hefted the stroller up the stairs because after all we had a bucks to get to! :D

Next on our agenda was the Washington Monument. So now that we had our caffeine on, we were raring to go! Start up your stroller engines and keep up, we are trotting off to the Washington Monument! Enter in said destination into phone, hit 'walk' and away we go! :)












We tried to begin each monument or building from here on out, with an introduction. So let me please introduce Mr Reed Lauinger to tell you all about this exciting place!

We actually didn't have tickets to the Washington Monument but that worked out just fine because when we were there it was closed for a few days because of some kind of a power failure. Plus it was super windy so I'm not sure I would've wanted to be up there anyway.

Grant showed us that although the blocks on the Washington Monument look really small or even a medium size, they are HUGE. He spread his arms across it - barely.

And some interesting facts, if you didn't know... 

The building of it ceased in 1854 when the Washington Monument Society ran out of funds. 

It was then restarted (note the marble color difference) in 1876 by the government. 

At the time it was finished it was the largest building in the world.

There can now be nothing taller in DC than the 555' Washington Monument.