DC Day 8--Hitting the sights hard

Monday June 27th was a BUSY day for us!  Lots and lots of walking.  I think nearly 7 miles kind of walking.  We wore them out...

First we hit the Library of Congress, 

Our children reading books in the Library of Congress.  Funny obligatory picture.  This building is probably THE MOST beautiful building in DC.  The walls are painted with gorgeous murals, there are unique and beautiful architecture and moldings.  Really pretty building.  Wish we'd had time to spend more time there.

Then we really had to jam, we had an appointment to take a tour of the US Capital building but wanted to eat our lunch first especially since you can't bring food or drink into the building with us.  So we ate super fast and then Stephen literally RAN miles back to our car to dispose of the left over food and ran back in time to meet us for our scheduled time.  We checked in the 45 minutes in advance they'd required (we were worried about losing our reservation) and they said they'd had a tour starting right then with room if we'd like to go earlier--which we did.  Whew! 

We each got to use these cool headphones and just listened to our tour guide.  The official tour was a bit of a let down.  A lot of the rotunda is under construction and it was anticlimactic.  Also, we thought we'd be able to see one of the gallies for either the Senate or the House of Representatives but that wasn't part of the tour.

See what's crazy is that if you want to see either the House of Representatives or Senate chambers you have to have a pass from your State Representative or your Senator.  So we had to leave the building and walk across the street to our State Representative Sam Johnson's offices so we could get a pass.  That building was interesting.  It seemed like it was "take your dog to work day" because in the few minutes we were there we saw like 3-4 dogs on leashes just along for the ride with their owners.  We got to the office we needed, a quick in and out with our little passes.  What's even more absurd was that if you were a citizen of another country there was a desk there in the Capital Building for you to get passes there.  Without the hike across the street and hassle of finding an office.

BUT, when we actually did get to go in and see the chambers that's when it really clicked for our kids.  They started saying that they recognized it from TV and I was glad we went through all the hassle to do it.

Our last stop of the day was the National Archives.  Absolutely no photography was allowed but we were able to see The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  WOW that was cool.

Whew!  We had seen a lot.  We were ready to head back to the Howe's and enjoy pizza and swimming at their community pool.  The kids really enjoyed the diving board.