Our Country's Birthday

I feel like most of my blogs lately are about trips. Sorry about the one track blogging, but here is more journaling and more photos about our time to explore. Someday I won't have any trips to blog about--

We took advantage of the long weekend over the 4^th to drive to Washington D.C. And Philadelphia. It was good and bad timing—We encountered lots of patriotism and crowds.

We ate our lunch in front of the Library of Congress -facing the Capitol. The Library of Congress was one of the impressive places I remember from my visits to D.C. when we lived in Virginia growing up.
Jared enjoyed seeing the Supreme Court building.



We made it to part of two Smithsonians to show Jordan the dinosaurs and Michael the space ships.


Of course the best part at the end of a long day was our stop to the temple. It is a spectacular sight and such a peaceful place.

The rest of these pictures are in Philadelphia on Saturday the 4th!
Waiting for the parade--Michael's patriotic artwork

We arrived just in time to claim a great spot for parade watching. The red brick building we faced across the street was the restored "Declaration House" where Jefferson rented a room while he worked was working on the Declaration. Michael wants me to include that he was the photographer for that picture.


One of the fun floats in the parade was the carriage with Abraham Lincoln commemorating his 200th birthday. The Lincoln festival outside the visitor's center had fun activities for the boys like building Lincoln Log cabins and making stovepipe top hats out of paper....

Our last two stops before heading home were the Liberty Bell and Independance Hall where the Declaration was signed.


There is the synopsis. condensed but not brief..
Happy Birthday America!