Washington DC: Day 1 (May 18)

Chase's graduation was only the beginning of our awesome trip.  We traveled to Virginia on May 16, attended graduation on May 17&18.  Following graduation on May 18 we drove up to Washington D.C.  It was about a 4 hour drive and was absolutely beautiful (even though I hate car rides).  We arrived and checked into out hotel.  We stayed at the Crystal City Marriott which had the Metro (subway) right in the hotel.  Awesome!!  We had 2 rooms so Jeff & myself, Grandma & Grandpa and Jord all stayed in a room together.  Yes, the other 4 kids stayed on their own.  Their room was disgusting!  I tried to never go in!

Once we got settled we headed off to the National Mall area.  We saw the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial.  When we got to the Washington Monument the area directly surround it is closed as it is under renovation.  We laughed SO hard!  Just a couple years ago we drove all the way to 4 corners and it was closed!

 Here we are outside our hotel.  My Mom and I bought matching sweatshirt at VT.  The weather was chillier than we though so we were pretty much twinners for an entire week!

 Inside the lobby of our hotel.  Taylor wanted to wear all her BYU gear to see if anybody ever said anything!  We did run into one family wearing BYU-I stuff, thats about as close as we got!

 Dad outside the Washington Monument!  What a great laugh!

 The under construction monument behind us

 Lincoln Memorial from a distance

 Lincoln Memorial up close.  Absolutely beautiful!!

 My Mitchy was so sweet at the WWII Memorial.  He was really serious about what it meant and would get frustrated with people when they weren't quite.  He is so tender. 

Chase and Taesha's mom lives near DC so they had seen these things.  Because it was late they dropped us off and drove around then were going to pick us back up.  Well, due to dead cell phone batteries and a little miscommunication we ended up in two different places.  Jeff had suggested that we take the kids back to the hotel while he tracked the older kids down.  Mitchell did then and said "give me liberty or give me death I am not leaving."  It was SO FUNNY!  Then Mitchy suggested we say a prayer.  It was super sweet and then 10 minutes later we found Chase and Taesha.  A great faith builder for him (and all of us)!