Philedelphia

On our way out of town we caught a glimpse of the Washington D.C. temple. I love that temple! I wish we could've gone to see it, but we didn't have time and it was under construction. We headed to Pennsylvania where we stopped first to see Gettysburg and then to see the Amish. We went on a buggy ride and to one of their stores to get some treats. It is a beautiful part of the country and it was really interesting to see the Amish people and learn more about their way of life. And then we drove to Philadelphia. We saw the Rocky statue and ran up the steps he ran up in the movie. We also saw the temple all lit up. The next day we visited the U.S. history sights and also walked around the temple. I wanted a picture of Nate by the Benjamin Franklin statue since Benjamin Franklin's story is an integral part of the beginning of Nate's book. My favorite part of Philadelphia was Independence Hall. It made me think a lot about the similarities between the founding of our country and the restoration of the gospel, both of which I am so grateful for. And the Philadelphia Temple is beautiful!

 

Washington D.C.

The first week of summer we took the kids to Washington D.C.. We had planned to go the previous year over Spring break and then Covid hit and we had to cancel. It was something I really wanted to do before Lia left the house. So even though we had a to do a little mask wearing and some of the museums were still not fully open, we had a great trip! We started at Mount Vernon--George Washington's home. It was awesome! The grounds were beautiful and we learned a lot there. From there we went to Annapolis and walked around there for a little bit. And then we went back to D.C. and saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the WW11 Memorial, the Washington Monument (where we watched Marine One land--which was really cool), the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and we got as close as we could to the White House. The next day we went to the Air and Space Museum in Virginia (which Josh especially loved and where he got his souvenir--a miniature model of a SR-71 Blackbird that he was SO excited about) and Arlington National Cemetery. In the middle of the week Nate had to take a work trip. We knew he had to when we booked the trip, but it was the only week we could make it work. So he took one for the team and made a quick trip to Kentucky. While he was gone, we spent the day at the Washington D.C. Zoo and then met up with him for dinner that night and to ride scooters to the Jefferson Memorial. Our last day there we went to the Spy Museum (that was Megan's favorite part) and got ice cream to end the night. The place we were staying wasn't awesome, so we decided to leave a night early and squeeze in a trip to Philadelphia before heading home. We finished our new Washington D.C. puzzle just in time before we left.