"I made it to Arlington...."

Please watch this video before reading my blog. Click here. - Even if you don't like this kind of music its really important to watch this first. Thanks.

Hey Everyone, 

Hope you enjoyed that video, I bet you can't guess where we went yesterday.... Yes we went to Arlington. Before I talk about Arlington I would like to tell you about some other stuff we did yesterday. In the morning we went to the Archives building, we got to see the Bill of Rights and The Declaration of Independence up close. They are in cases and the lights are really dim in the room to preserve the documents, they wont let you take pictures either because the light ruins the documents. They have guards everywhere in that room, no one would make it out of that room with the Declaration like they did on National Treasure :P Later that afternoon we went to see the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and the Vietnam Wall. I have to say Arlington and the Vietnam Wall were the the hardest things of the day, the Vietnam Wall was hard because my Grandfather almost was in that war. We walked the whole wall, people were putting down flowers with pictures near the name of their loved one. We went to the Capitol building and the Art Museum,  those buildings were really nice. 

Arlington for those who don't know is a cemetery for all soldiers, there were some funerals going on when we were there and we were told that they have about 27 funerals a day. There are rows and rows of white grave sites, there are some stones on hills these stones are for soldiers who have lost their lives and their body's have not been found. We went up to the top of the cemetery where they have the Changing of the Guard ceremony every hour. The soldier up there is in charge of guarding The Tomb Unknown Soldier, he marches up and down until another guard comes and relieves him. The tomb is guarded 24/7, 365 days a year rain or shine it doesn't matter if there is a hurricane they are still out there guarding it. 

Today we went to Mount Vernon, George Washington's house. We watched some really good movies about George Washington, they told us about him and what he did. After the movies (they call it orientation) you go outside and take a look at his house. His house is very big and really nice inside, there are lots of rooms and guest rooms. There is a lovely view of the Potomac river from his back windows or back porch. After the tour of the house we bought a ticket for a special tour.... The National Treasure Tour! We got some really cool facts and saw some secret passageways, I am not going to tell you a lot about it because if you go there I don't want to ruin it for you! Next we saw George Washington's grave, he actually had two graves and old grave and a new grave. Washington died very suddenly one day of a throat infection, in his Will it said that he wanted a new grave built so thats what they did. He is buried in the new grave, his grave is in a gated area with his wife.

Hope you enjoyed todays blog! Tomorrow we will be heading to New York! Goodnight! :) 

"Soldiers live in peace and angels sing amazing grace"

Pieces of the twin towers

Vietnam Exhibit

AAARRRRGGG!!

Washington's Stool 

Washington Camp Set

Kermit!!

Apollo's Skates

Dorothy's Slippers

Abraham Lincoln's Hat

Abraham Lincoln's Watch 

The Cloth With Lincoln's Blood

Nemo :)

Dorry :)

Thats a rock!

Hope Diamond :)

Hey Guys!

Today was great! We went into town again, and decided to go to both history museums. We started at the American History Museum, we stayed there until 2:00pm because there was so much to see! There are 3 floors to the museum with an east wing and west wing! There was so much to see I can't remember what we saw first so I am going to tell you about the things I took pictures of :) There was this boat section where you can learn about all the old boats, Megan and I decided to just go around and play with all the touch screen computers! The computers in that section played sailors songs....It played them really loud, everyone in the room could hear it oops :) Next we went into the war exhibits they were really interesting, they had soldiers original uniforms and personal items in the cases. We saw George Washington's stool and camp chest, they were in very good condition for being so old! There was a lot of civil war items but I went through that pretty fast, next I came to the world wars the that exhibit was not that big which surprised me. The next war was the Vietnam War which was very interesting to see and very sad at the same time. When you walk into the room next to the Vietnam exhibit there were big metal pieces of the twin towers, that was very sad to see because that was not history to me, it was reality. We got to see the metals of honor which were well deserved by the soldiers. Its very sad to see those soldiers leaving their family's and homes to go to war across the country to risk their lives for us, and some of us don't appreciate what they have done for us and our country. When we got attacked by the terrorists the brave soldiers didn't complain about risking their lives and going over to Iraq, they knew it was their duty to their country, yet all we do is complain about them being over there and we don't thank them enough for keeping our country free. 

We saw the Star Spangled Banner!! They give you history about it then you walk into this room that is dark except for these little lights, then you look to your left...and there it is! It was so amazing to see! One of my favorite things of the day!

Upstairs on the third level they had kermit the frog, Apollo's ice skates, and Dorothy's ruby slippers! I took lots of pictures :) They had this really cool exhibit about Abraham Lincoln with his hat, clothes, watch, and this white cuff from an actress that held his head after he was shot it has his blood on it. After we were done at that museum we went to the Museum of Natural History, it only took us an hour to go through that one though. There was a whole section about the sea it was really big, they had jelly fish, sharks, and whales hanging from the celling. They even had a tank of Nemo's and Dorry's!! :) After the sea exhibit we went to the mammal exhibit, there were some really cool animals :) We haven't decided what to do tomorrow, I guess we will find out in the morning! Hope all of you enjoyed tonight's blog!! Make sure to check in tomorrow :) Have an amazing night! 

You have to watch this video! 

http://www.cmt.com/videos/tim-mcgraw/207372/if-youre-reading-this-from-2007-acm-awards.jhtml

"Fly me to the moon"

Hey Everyone!! 

Hope you had a wonderful day!! Today we went to the city of Washington D.C.!! This morning we had to get up early because we had to take the bus to the metro. Well when you are from New Hampshire you don't uses busses or subways, we had no idea what we were doing when we got there. There were some nice people at there that helped us and told us where to get on and off. When we got out of the metro we were in front of the archives building, we decided to go to the air and space museum it was just a little bit of a walk. When you walk into the building there is a security check you have to go through, then you can start exploring the museum! The left side and the and the left second floor has the air plains and history on them. The right side and the right second floor holds the space exhibits, the space exhibit is smaller then the air exhibit. We started in the air exhibit, our first exhibit was the beginning of flight, it was very interesting. The next one was the World Wars and their airplanes, it was very well done and had a lot of information. We also went to the Wright Brothers exhibit, and the Amelia Earhart exhibit. We saw the original airplanes, it was so cool to be standing right next to them! After touring the air exhibit we went to get lunch, we decided to eat in the museum. We ate quick so we could get to the space exhibit, the space exhibit in my opinion was not as interesting as the air exhibit. We were done looking at the space exhibit within 20 minutes, we left the museum and headed for the FBI building. We walked all the way over to the FBI building to find out that they don't do tours anymore due to 9/11.We decided to walk to Ford Theater after that, we took a really cool tour! They brought you into the theater and had you sit down, they told you all about how Booth entered the theater and killed Lincoln. The story of how everything worked was very interesting. If you want to learn about everything you will have to go to D.C. its really cool to listen to the story in the theater. After we left the Ford Theater we walked to the spy museum but decided we didn't want to pay the extra money to do that. We walked to the crime and punishment museum next but they were closing for an event, so we couldn't take a tour of the museum either!! We decided to go home so we jumped on the metro and then got on the bus back to the campground. When we got back I went and had my nails done :) On the way home we grabbed a pizza, now we are watching tv and relaxing after a long day of walking! Tomorrow we will be going to  the Natural History Museum and the Museum of American History! Thats a lot of history in one day!! :) Stayed tuned tomorrow for pictures and more information :)


Check out the song below :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCW9Hey6IVY