5 Year Anniversary!

Dale has been in Washington, D.C. for work since the 23rd of November.  He had a break during the first week of December and so the plan was for William and I to fly back and look for a place to live.  But Dale called me one day with an offer I couldn't refuse...that we turn this trip into a 5 year anniversary trip as well!  I couldn't resist the offer, especially since I had never been to Washington, D.C. before.  So I left William in Fresno (thank you Kellogg family!!) and caught the red eye to DC.  Wednesday morning we headed for a town about 70 miles west of DC called Winchester and looked for a place to live.  We found a great little house that seems like it is going to be perfect for us.  It is about 45 miles from the airport where Dale is going to be based out of.  I planned on going back to Fresno on Saturday, so that left us with Thursday and Friday to have some fun!  On Thursday we went to Arlington Cemetery and the Washington, D.C. Temple and on Friday we did as many of the monuments, memorials, and other buildings that our legs could carry us to.  No joke I bet we walked close to 10 miles that day.  No joke!

This is the view from where JFK is buried.  The story goes that while he was at the top of the hill in the cemetery, he said that he "could stay here forever".  So when it was decided to bury him in the cemetery, they found a spot for him that was on a direct line from the top of the hill to the Lincoln Memorial.  

There were so many grave sites in the cemetery.

We walked over to where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers is at and just so happened to show up at the time that they were changing the guards.  It was a ceremony that lasted about 5 minutes.  Very precise how they do it all.

Each day multiple wreaths are laid at the foot of the tomb.

The tomb is guarded around the clock.  Literally.  365 days a year, 24 hours a day.  The guard walks up a path maybe 20 yards long.  At the end he pauses for 21 seconds, then turns toward the tomb and pauses for 21 seconds and then turns back from where he came and pauses for 21 seconds before he walks back down the same path, taking 21 steps before he stops and repeats.

Again, a lot of graves.

After the Arlington Cemetery, we headed to a Cafe Rio (yes, they have them here in Virginia) and then headed to the Washington, D.C. Temple for the first night of the Christmas lights and Christmas concerts.  On our way we got a serious taste of the area traffic.  It took us 90 minutes to go 13 miles.  Wow!  Glad we aren't living there.  

Dale has this awesome skill of taking amazing selfies!  He always gets us and the subject behind us in the shot on the first try!

I'm so excited that this is going to be our temple.

The view of the Jefferson Memorial from just down the path.

The front of the Jefferson Memorial.

The view of the Washington Monument from the Jefferson Memorial.

Thomas Jefferson was an interesting character.  There was a park ranger at the Memorial who told us quite a bit of information that neither of us knew before.

The MLK, Jr. memorial.

The front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Us in front of Honest Abe.

It's a pretty big statue.

From the top of the Lincoln Memorial this is the view.  The Washington Monument with the Reflection Pool.

The Vietnam Memorial, which has the names of every person killed in the Vietnam War.  But even more in that, they are listed in the order in which they were killed.  That must have been a feat to figure out.

To me the White House didn't seem as big as I was thinking it was going to be.

Don't remember what this building was, but I thought it looked cool.

The Capitol building is under renovation right now and from the inside it has this big balloon protecting people below.

More pictures of the Capitol.

More Capitol.  Unfortunately after 9/11 the only way to see the Capitol is by taking a tour.  Our guide was actually really cool and knew his stuff, but they show you things that are not very interesting and skip over some things that we would have liked to see.  For example, we must have spent about 10 minutes talking about some chandelier in an obscure stairwell.  Snooze fest! 

Each state has two statues of influential people in their history.  Brigham Young is one of the statues for Utah.  We couldn't find the other one.

It was such a great trip and I am glad that it all worked out.  We found a nice rental house in Winchester that we are excited to move into and we were also able to turn it into our 5 year anniversary trip!