Our last day here . . .

Well, it is the night of our last day.  It has been interesting and eventful to say the least.  We started today pretty slowly.  After everyone was so exhausted the day before, we decided to let the girls sleep later and try to catch up on some much needed rest.  We didn't leave to go downtown until about 10 or a little after.  We road the Metro, feeling pretty comfortable, and made it to Congressman Southerland's office MORE THAN 30 MINUTES EARLY!  Unfortunately, they had had a very crazy morning and we didn't get to meet the congressman.  We did however meet some other nice people who were there.  It was his legislative assistant, whose name eludes me, who took us to our tour guides.  We watched a movie with a hundred or so other people and then went on our tour.  Fortunately, they split our tours into school groups and then "others" and we were happy to be in the other group!  The tour itself was very short.  We saw the rotunda of the Capitol Building.  It was beautiful and amazingly decorated.

This is the dome of the capitol.  Beautiful!

The painted part, close up.

Then we went downstairs and looked at the crypt.  It was interesting as well.  We saw the center of Washington, D.C.  From that middle star, four quadrants are created for the city.  Each quadrant has a separate zip code, so you could walk through all four zip codes just by walking around the star.

Catherine standing on the center star of Washington, D.C.

After we left the tour, we went back to Congressman Southerland's office because security wouldn't allow us to take our backpack.  Those dangerous snacks and all I guess.  Anyway, the nice assistant took the backpack for us back to their office so we could go pick it up later.  He also took Stacy's pocket knife. :)  Now why did he bring that to the Capitol?  We said good bye to his nice staff, and headed for Congressman Webster's office.  He isn't actually our congressman, but our good friend Nathan Dunn works for him, and some of his staff  is connected to Stacy's Aunt Bobbi, so we wanted to go by and say hello.  This congressman wasn't in either, but we talked to Elizabeth and her brother Andrew, two very nice, formerly homeschooled aides to Congressman Webster.  The girls were hungry so they suggested we go eat and come back in a few minutes.  Fortunately, we went downstairs to eat, came back and he popped into his office just for a picture with us.  It was a special event for us!  This whole time felt very different from our previous tourist days.  Today, we were citizens, seeing a little bit of the democratic process.

Eating at the Capitol Cafeteria.  Lobbying was taking place just behind Stacy and Elizabeth.

  Our picture with Senator Webster

When we left the Capitol building, we remembered the Library of Congress and the noteworthy architecture that someone  had mentioned to us.  We hadn't really decided what we would do the rest of the day.  We had a couple of ideas.  We didn't do the National Gallery of Art justice when we went there.  It was rushed and not really enjoyed by any of us, so I wanted to go back there.  We also didn't make it to the National Cathedral.  That was one place I really wanted to go as well, but it was a hike after we rode the metro, and no one was up for it.  Finally, we remembered the Library of Congress that was just across the street from the Capitol.  That was close and we hadn't seen it before.  That was where we went!  It was amazing.  You cannot believe the elaborate way it is built and decorated.  I'm sure the pictures don't do it justice, but we took them anyway.  It is a beautiful building and I think we all enjoyed seeing the inside of it as well as some of it's older items: a Gutenberg Bible, a Cathedral Bible (hand written), and a map that dates from the 1500s that was worth 15 million dollars.  We couldn't take pictures of any of those, but they were certainly nice to see.

The ceiling of the Library of Congress.

Some of the amazing architecture.

More beauty! ;)

We decided to go back to the hotel at this point, and road our last time back on the metro.  It was a bittersweet ending.  I was glad to have it, but it isn't exactly fun.  As we got on that last time it was about 3:30.  People poured out of nowhere and seemed to fill every nook and cranny of the metro station.  I was glad to leave that mob of people behind and so were the girls.

By the time we were home, we pretty much had to begin looking for a place for supper.  We had ordered cupcakes from Georgetown cupcakes so we knew we had to drive to Georgetown.  We decided to drive to a nice dinner and then over to Georgetown.  If we had it in us, we would drive over to Dupont Circle and try to find the coffee shop that was supposed to have locally roasted coffee to purchase in the bag.  Well, we got lost before we made it to El Raddichio, a delicious Italian restaurant that seemed to be Italian owned.  We thoroughly enjoyed our salad and spaghetti with different sauces.

After a delightful dinner, we successfully navigated our way to Georgetown, parked, and quickly picked up our cupcakes.  Georgetown Cupcakes is just as busy as they look.  There was a huge line but we walked right up and picked ours up because we had ordered the day before.

 We didn't eat them there because they had no seating at all that we could see.  Instead we put them in the car, and feeling optimistic after our trip to Georgetown, we aimed the car for Dupont Circle.  At least we tried.  When we got to Dupont Circle (finally) we couldn't find the coffee shop at all.  We drove around for a while trying to find it, and finally gave up.  We headed for home without the coffee beans.  Thankfully, it wasn't nearly as hard to find the way to Alexandria as it had been to find Dupont Circle.  D.C. really needs many more clearly marked signs.

We are home now, our tummies are even fuller with our Georgetown Cupcakes; we are almost ready for bed.  This ends our D.C. part of the trip.  We may have cured our girls from ever wanting to live in a big city, particularly the District, but we have also shared so many unique memories that they can hold onto, and we can too!

D.C. Day 3

On our 3rd day, we visited Arlington National Cemetery and the National Zoo.  Rain was predicted but instead it was sunny and pretty hot.  We all got sun from standing at  the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown.  It was really neat to watch even though it was hot.

After the tomb of the unknown, we made our way over to Arlington House.  It was the home of Robert E. Lee until the beginning of the Civil War, when Union Troops took it over.  It was a neat home and there was much information on his children that grew up there.  Unfortunately they had some earthquake damage and much of it was sectioned off so we couldn't see it.

Our last stop was at the eternal flame of JFK.  I didn't remember that Jacqueline Kennedy had lost a baby just months before her husband was shot.  It was interesting.  He isn't my favorite president, but it is still a nice tribute.

When we left Arlington, we headed on the Metro to the Zoo.  Stacy is using his technology to know when our connector train is coming.  We timed it several times yesterday where we stepped off one train, hurried to the next train and stepped right on.  We are pretty good at this Metro thing, although I think everyone is a little afraid of the folks on the Metro at times.

We had to walk much farther to get to the zoo from the Metro than we had imagined.  It was several blocks uphill.  By the time we got there, Momma was famished!!  I just can't go too long without eating!  After a refreshment time, we enjoyed the sights of the zoo.

These were the wildest animals of all!!  

It was fun and interesting, but we were all so tired yesterday.  We came home by 5, rested, got showers (because after all that walking in the heat, we needed them!) and went out in Alexandria to eat.  It was a delicious tex-mex restaurant called Austin Grill.  It was delicious and we were happy to get to bed by 10:00.  Today we are much refreshed and ready for a tour of the Capitol at 12:00!

Day 2 in D.C.

Well, our second day has been very full, tiring, interesting, filled with information (overload?) and many beautiful views, and of course, lots and lots and lots of walking.  We actually had a bus tour today, but we still walked miles.  This is just a walking city!

Our first stop was at the Naval Memorial  It was neat to see all the different areas of the Navy that was honored.  We took this picture of the girls with the statue there and plan to give it to a couple of friends who have close ties to the Navy.

Next we went to the museum of Natural History.  It was so chocked full of evolution that it made me sick!  Virtually all of it was stated as a fact instead of as theory.  We have a long way to go to expose the truth, and the lies.  But there were really neat animals there, and no one seemed too put out by it but me, so I think we had a good time.

 This was the view from the 2nd floor looking down on the first.  It was really neat.  After natural history, we went to the Museum of American History.  It was fun.  We picked and chose carefully because we were already tired and we knew we couldn't see everything.  This next picture is in front of the 1939 exhibit.  I thought it was neat because it was the year Meme was born!

 

We looked at all the evening gowns of the first ladies and then we went to the Presidential section.  here is a cute one of Julia looking at the list of all the presidents.  She seemed to enjoy all the museums and wanted to stop and look at EVERYTHING. The other two, not so much.  

I also got a picture of President Lincoln's top hat when he was assassinated.   That was really cool.  After the Museum of American History we finally found our bus tour and road it for a little bit to Ford's Theatre where Lincoln was shot.  From there we quickly caught the metro to Metro City where we got on the last bus of the day that went out to the monuments.  We got off at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and walked the tidal basin where all the Cherry trees had to be at peak bloom.  It was so beautiful!  I have lots of pictures of those, too and I'll try to post a couple, but I'm having trouble getting the photos loaded one at a time.  

We walked from the Tidal  Basin to Lincoln's Memorial, stopping briefly to see the Korean War Memorial.  I think it is a very powerful one, but we were tired and achy and I'm not sure any of us could really appreciate it like  we would have liked to.  From there we went to the Lincoln Memorial and from there, to the Metro, some  number of blocks away.  When we finally sat on down in our seats, we were all famished and exhausted.  Then we ate hungrily at Chipotle Grill.  Elizabeth has decided that she is more of a lay around and don't do anything kind of vacation person.  Catherine hasn't said that yet, but she may have thought it.  Julia is loving all this activity.  She virtually bounces around most of the time.  The more tired, the more bouncy.  Stacy is taking care of all of us.  Boy, does he have his hands full.

More pictures tomorrow.  I'm tired. :)

WE MADE IT!!!  After a VERY long car ride we got to our hotel at about noon on Saturday, and to the National Mall a couple hours later.  It was a beautiful day and we were able to take in the Air and Space Museum, National Gallery of Art, and the National Archives.  We saw some extremely cool stuff in all three.  We touched a moon rock, saw paintings by Da Vinci, Monet, and Rembrandt, and read the actual Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.  Oh, and by the way, the Bill of Rights says what we all know it says and that some want to ignore!    Ok, off the soap box-guess this is why the girls never let me post on here!  We also saw the land grant application completed and signed by Charles Ingles from Little House in the Big Woods fame, books the girls have really loved.

Washington D.C.

Just a heads up we are heading to D.C.!!! It is going to be very exciting and so be expecting lots of pictures and posts soon!! :) 

How much Vitamin C is in orange juice?

Okay, I know this is not about our family that much I thought it would be cool to post a tutorial for my science fair project. I am trying to find out how much vitamin C is in concentrate orange juice, fresh squeezed, and florida's natural store bought. When trying to find out how to do this experiment there were no videos or pictures, so I decided to make the first one.

Here are the materials            1st: mix 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with enough water to make paste

2nd: Add 250 mL of water to the paste, and boil for 5 minutes

3: Add 10 drops of starch solution to 75 mL of water

                                   Add enough iodine to create a dark purple blue color

                            Get 5 ml of iodine (above) and put in a cup (below)

Add drops of orange juice into the solution. Whichever kind uses the least drops to turn the solution clear (below) is the one with the most vitamin C. 

Now, just try it yourself! :) 

So....Yeah

Why hello everyone! After some completely random posts yesterday, I am back! So I am now trying to improve my blog writing and some really cool recipes and DIY projects. Also I will start to make more lists of what has happened since I blogged last, instead of trying to explain everything. List are simpler. :) So watch out for all of those things, and some, excuse me ALOT more pictures. I have also been linking a song's lyrics in my posts of songs that have to do with my post. There is one I just like in the title. TTYL!!

Dry-Erase DIY

 This is just a simple picture frame, with a piece of printed paper inside. You can write congratulatory messages to your children when they do something good, or noteworthy. :) 

Whiteboard


Step 1-Get an old window and spray- paint the back white
Step 2- Let dry 
Step 3- Write on it with dry-erase markers. 
This is a super cool idea for something rustic and cool! We like to write messages to friends when they come over, and of course, we use it for school too! 


I hope you all like these projects! There will be more to come. 

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas!

has everyone had a great thanksgiving!? I hope so! We are now in full force Christmas mode. YAYY!! We have been putting up our decorations and making our rooms more festive. Here are some of our decorations.

 In this photo we hung an ornament on our light fixture. I think it's kinda cute, but I'm 13.

 This is a side view of our mantel. There are silver and blue bulbs scattered and blue and green tea light candles scattered around.

On the far right side is a glass container full of sparkly bulbs. When the candles are lit, it looks really cool!

Get your creative juices flowing!

Hello Everyone! Not much has been going on recently, but last Sunday was pretty crazy. After relaxing, we went into major creative mode. We are entering our local fair with baked goods, Christmas ornaments, poems, photography, drawings, we were in a little over our heads, but it was fun. Sadly, we were so busy baking at 9:00 at night, that we forgot to take pictures!! :( But that's okay! I will post pictures of us with our ribbons when we get them back. I will also probably post some of the things we entered at a later date. TTYL! 

Fun Fridays!

Okay, so first I would like to go into some randomness about titles. Blog post titles. Not every day something happens to us so amazing that I can make a title about it, so I may call all Fridays fun Fridays. Or maybe I won't. I don't know why I told y'all that but anywho let's go into our day. Heh, heh, the nice thing about homeschooling is that homeschooling is a wonderful thing. :) basically, we didn't get up until 8:30. It was sunny and pleasant outside. Yeah! Yesterday I didn't post, but my mom finally got a camera. She had one, but dropped it so many times it finally broke. So she used mine until she got this one!! ( I will upload pictures eventually, I just can't right now since I am typing this whole thing out on my iPod.) Tonight we are going to have a movie night!! And that is all. And I straightened my hair. TTYL!!!!