How to do D.C. in 84 hours and ...

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I promise to get my "What would you do if you had one day in D.C." for those who have asked for it - so this was my research weekend.

The everything pink tour bus has now parked. This weekend we have seen and experienced the following: (now you can see why I have not posted)

Washington Monument

National Zoo - the hippos were the best!

Iwo Jima Memorial

Jefferson Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

World War I Memorial (this was a first for me)

Capitol tour (super special tour where we stood on the balcony, I almost threw off Caroline so it was a little intense for me)

Lunch at the Museum of the Native American

National Cathedral

Changing of the guard and Eternal Flame at the Arlington Cemetery

Georgetown

Cosi

Old Towne Alexandria

Mt. Vernon

Paper Source

Embassy Row

Future Site of the Martin Luther King Memorial

Kentlands Community Garage Sale (oh prepare to be very jealous)

PT Cruiser, punch buggy, Cooper, Subaru Outback

D.C. 3 Ward building - early abort - crying from AK

encounter with D.C. Metro Police Officer (Military ID again comes in handy)

Walter Reed Medical Center

Wrong turn which took us to the Pentagon

Ben's Chili Bowl

Buggies Pizza in Virginia

Marble Slab Creamery

George Mason Memorial

Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial

Many, many public bathrooms thanks to Caroline's weak bladder

The National Mall

found the spot for my 2009 Christmas Card photo

Found the freaky shark man on the Tidal Basin bridge (huge ribbon contest coming)

two visits to the playground

Took the turtle to his new home in the lake

chasing squirrels

Annie Kate's truancy ("not she is not sick, she has an appointment downtown with the leader of the free world")

driving the gator in the back of the truck (luckily the Metro police did not catch us)

Fresca, Trader Joe's dried pineapple, make your own breakfast because your friend is too tired to get out of bed

Guapo's

Appreciation for this great country - Pink and Priceless!

Memorial Day Weekend

Even though this video does not tell all the fun and emotional details of the weekend, it does a pretty good job. I just continue to be star struck by every memorial and monument and hope that does not wear off.
And if anyone is making a list of things to do before you die, put walking along the Vietnam Memorial Wall on Memorial day - it is amazing.

music selection was from the music at the concert on Saturday night -
If you are going through hell - Rodney Atkins (I could not resist using this song after the funny performance - since it was the dress rehearsal they had a stage hand stand in and lip sync it)
God Bless the USA - the version I used was from this season of American Idol
Where do I Begin? Idina Menzel

this can only mean one thing...

A trip to Fleet Feet to stock up on gu...

and making the best carbo filled baked ziti ever...

National Marathon Baked Ziti

16 oz. ziti pasta

1lb 10 oz. bottle spaghetti sauce (trader joe's has a great one)

6 oz. sliced provolone (or enough to cover 9x13)

6 oz. mozzarella cheese

1 ½ -2 cups sour cream

1 pd. Ground beef

1 onion, chopped

Grated parmesan cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions. Brown ground beef and onion. Add spaghetti sauce. Layer as follows in a greased 9x13 pan. Half of the ziti, provolone cheese, sour cream, half of the sauce mixture, remaining ziti, mozzarella cheese, and remaining sauce mixture. Top with parmesan cheese and bake at 350 for 30 min. or until cheese is melted.

and a sign like this can only mean one thing, someone in our family ran a marathon this weekend and I wish it would have been me..... but it was Jeff!

love this photo taken by Anne with the blurry American Flag

I think I am now convinced that I am married to Superman!

great photo taken by Jeff's mom as he is getting ready to cross the finish line

Anyone who trains for a marathon in the freezing winter of the East should get an extra t-shirt! I was so proud of Jeff for finishing the race but also knocking minutes off his time from the other one he ran just 5 months ago! ( i would love to have run by my 6 hour marathon finish doesn't qualify me to run anything more than the path in my neighborhood)

Jeff's parents came across the country to see him finish.

I of course cried! And the two little girls said as they went to bed, "my daddy is fast!"

The mayor of D.C. also ran and finished just after Jeff. He is responsible for starting this new marathon just 5 years ago.
But the true hero of the day was Anne! A blogging friend and also a marathon runner who came to cheer Jeff on.
we didn't make it to mile 16 where we had planned to meet him but Anne did. She snapped this photo and gave him the boost he said he so desperately needed!
Backcountry.com gets honorable mention for their merino wool zip shirt - Jeff says it was a life saver! note the goat!

it was great having him run it just to get this leg collapsing hug after he finished.

Way to go Superman!

a Great, Good Friday

This is the first year that Jeff actually has a vacation when Annie Kate as spring break. Yee ha! We will head to the beach after Easter so we have a few days to explore the city until we leave.
Today we went to the National Cathedral. Being Good Friday I figured it would have a service going on that we could take the kids to.
We were able to be in the chapel for the first part of the service and the girls did really great. But we scooted out after just a bit so we didn't ruin a good thing. I had never heard the organs played inside and that was a treat.

Since most of the main floor was closed for the service we went to our favorite spot which is on the 7th floor conservatory. You can do a 360 view of the city and I am not so worried about the kids whispering up top.

Sally Jane played tour guide to Jeff by pointing different things out.

Caroline of course just ran and ran and ran!
They have some classes up here so have tables and chairs. All the chairs have a gold plate on them with someones name whom the chair is in memory of. This chair was for a man named Hennings. I love that name and am throwing it out there for anyone having a boy.

They have an exhibit going on right now that was me and Jeff's favorite part of the day. It was so interesting to read all the detail and stories behind this amazing place. Here are two of my favorite from the day. On all the prayer benches below each chair there are hand needle pointed cushions that are made by women all over the world. It is such a beautiful part of the Cathedral and a must see if you go. They are mostly down in the crypt. Any one can apply to stitch one for the church but you must first send in a sampler to apply and then if your work is accepted they send you back a painted canvas for you to do. Ever since I saw these a year and a half ago I thought, I would love to be able to say I learned how to needlepoint and do one. But I would always self talk me out of thinking that was possible, considering I have no idea how to do it. But this story was an awesome example of you are never too old to learn something new.

............................

Katherine Schachner first learned needlepoint at the age of 60. During the next 25 years, she worked on more than 30 projects for the Cathedral alone.
............................
There are more than 1500 separate pieces of needlepoint at the cathedral. The blessing of blogging is while typing this I have done a little more research on these pieces and their history. I found a class being offered in the cathedral in a few weeks and I just bought tickets to go. We get to walk through the parts of the cathedral and learn of their history and the hands that made them. I love it when my favorite two worlds collide - handmade and history!

The story of Phillp H. Frohman who was one of the Architects of the Cathedral. He decided at age 12 that this is what he wanted to do for his life, build churches. This was a neat story about him and his characters.

...........

If any man was a perfectionist it was Philip H. Frohman. In War Memorial Chapel, Frohman discovered that the stone capping a double column was too short by a fraction of a inch . The problem was a result from his miscalculation.
His solution: insert two carved figures to conceal the space. He personally paid for the carvings, entitled "Architect's Mistake"
...........

The two figures or two figures: one pulling his hair out in frustration for discovering the mistake and two a figure calm after seeing the problem was fixed. We could not go into the War Chapel because of the Good Friday service going on. but next time we go I will look for those for sure. The Cathedral has so many stories all over that it is almost like a treasure hunt to find them all.

the bookstore of the National Cathedral I think is one of the best of places to visit in D.C. I have never bought anything but the entrance is just enticing and they always have great treasures. If you collect nativity sets, you can find ones from all over the world in there.
as we walked outside the girls found a little, little lady bug on the big stone steps.
this was the first time we have been there since they have added underground parking. It is such a breeze now to park, in the past it has been bit crazy. They now have these glass Wonkavators that take you under ground.
We then made our first visit to Georgetown campus. We had lunch and walked around. We ended our day by going to see the new Disney movie called College Road Trip. The character in the movie dreams of going to Georgetown, so I thought a visit to the campus would be fun. (the littles watched Horton and a visit to the zoo to see the elephants happened a few weeks ago, but of course not on purpose)
The campus is so much smaller than I expected. This was a building used in the movie and Caroline made it her stage and started doing all these dances while we sat on the lawn to watch. It was so funny. And my second favorite part of the day.

She was seriously in her element performing

her cooky personality really got going and we had to stop her before she broke out into song and got us kicked off campus.
I was able to add a new photo to my "me in D.C." collection.
I also came home and did a little research on some Georgetown facts I was curious about.

• Tuition $35,568 a year
• a little over 6000 undergraduate students
• it was founded in 1789 the same year the US constitution took effect
  

Housing costs are $8,000 a year

these were some photos of the dorm windows and thought they were a perfect journaling for the year

then the best part of our campus tour and Annie Kate's favorite part of the day. The women's Lacrosse team was practicing. It was just awesome to watch. (my friend emily would be so proud of me!)
Annie Kate almost became in a daze and was so focused on them. It was an amazing thing to watch all the girls being so supportive and constantly yelling "good Job, way to go etc" while they are playing

we were obviously the only one in the stands and the girls had a blast

there were two cemeteries on the campus that we found

we then headed on our way out to the Campus bookstore to get Annie Kate a Lacrosse T-Shirt. (they didn't have any her size)
The Basketball team was playing and they had the game on in the bookstore. right before I took this photo there was quite a crowd watching the game. Their is some big time March Madness going on on that campus.

We found Annie Kate a shirt and she was pretty excited to put it right on.

It was a great, Good Friday for sure!
..................................
Have you ever been to Georgetown Campus?
The National Cathedral?

seeing the sights.

We are so lucky to have family in town this weekend and today we hit the road for 12 hours of sightseeing. I loved this photo of my Garmin seeing all the places we went.

Highlights of the day.

• 3 parents
• 3 strollers
• 7 kids - one is only 5 weeks old. (his mom looks AMAZING!)
  
• wonderful weather
• Iwo Jima - seeing a change of command on the lawn
  
• Arlington Cemetery
• President Kennedy's eternal flame
• Tomb of the unknown solider
• paused for a funeral
• lunch in the car - thank goodness for packing a lunch
• Mt. Vernon
• Ice cream and gigantic pretzels
  
• Jefferson Memorial
• FDR Memorial
• loving seeing the cousins together
• Jeff bringing pizza to the tidal basin and feeding the ducks

Tomorrow brings on the National Mall and the top of the Washington monument. Bring on the history!!My favorite photo of the day - the girls at the Jefferson memorial

Argentine Embassy

As I get ready to type about our night, I still can not even believe how blessed we were to do what we did tonight. It was truly a tender mercy to have this experience.

We had been invited to come to a reception at the Argentine Embassy because my husband has served a two year mission for our church there. We had recently had dinner with a diplomat from Argentina and met him and his family and were thrilled to be invited. The way this all came together is to me is as well amazing.
Another missionary from Argentina, who is much younger than my husband works on Capitol Hill and had met this diplomat. During a conversation this young man asked what he thought about bringing as many past missionaries from their country together for a reception at the Embassy. This diplomat was more than thrilled to host this event.

We took the metro to DuPont Circle. I still am so amazed when I am on the Metro and feel like such a small town girl. I love looking at everyone and wondering where they are going, how their day was, are they excited or sad to get home. (this is always tough for Jeff because my mind is racing and it is hard to have a conversation with me)

When we came out of the escalators coming out of the Metro it was POURING rain. This photo does not even do justice to how cool it was to just riding up waiting to get hit by all the water.
We got off at DuPont and luckily only had to run in a down pour for two blocks to New Hampshire Ave.

The Argentine Embassy is not on Embassy row but in a neighborhood right off DuPont Circle. The home was built in 1901. In 1916 the home was purchased by Argentina.
It is exquisite! This is an OVAL (I have never seen an oval room like this before) reception room full of art. There was stain glass everywhere with the RA monogram on it (Republic of Argentina) All of the door knobs and window knobs were just beautiful. I had asked the diplomats wife if it was OK to take photos and she said yes, but still I didn't want to go camera happy, so I didn't take that many. I just felt so honored to be there, I didn't want to ruin the chance to get invited back.

There was a small reception and then the young man who organized it spoke and introduced President Hammond (The Washington D.C. Temple President) who spoke and then introduced the Argentine Ambassador.
The young man who spoke did an incredible job. The one thing that really touched me was when he said,
"As missionaries I know we all made one promise as we flew home, that we would some day return to Argentina. Today you have come true to your promise, because right now in this home your are on Argentine soil. You have returned."
President Hammond spoke to the Ambassador and told him,
"In this room sits some of your best ambassador's. They come home and share their love of Argentina, they tell their families. They get married and tell their spouses of their love for Argentina. Then they have children and what is their favorite stories to tell their children? The stories from Argentina! Then their children become Ambassador's for Argentina." I of course was crying!
The Ambassador is an amazing man and had even run for president of his country. He spoke of his love for our church and what changes it has brought to his country. He said he loves how our church teaches the people to work through example. It was truly an amazing night.

They then brought out empanadas, fresh mango slices and Dulce de leche cookies( i don't remember the actual name). Those empanadas were as amazing as Jeff has always described them to me. If I would have had pockets I would have filled them full to take home.
I am hoping to get together with the diplomats wife sometime as she said she would be happy to teach me how to make them. Nothing would make Jeff happier then for me to know how to make those.


Before we got back on the Metro to go home we stopped off at Krispy Kreme at DuPont circle and had a yummy lemonade slushy and looked over the map of Argentina and it is probably the first time Jeff has shown me on a map all the places he lived and holds so dear to his heart!

Discovering D.C.

Tonight was my Discovering D.C. class at my Church. It was kind of fun to go through this past year and get things ready for it. It also is the reason why I have not posted or done my SPT this week. I had two tables set up with ideas, books galore (I think I checked out 20 library books) I gave little goodies to the person who has lived in the area the longest and the one who have lived here the shortest. I also gave away something to who could name the monument that has replaced the President in one of the Presidential monuments.
I made a Family Home Eventing Quiz to take home and get everyone excited about diving into the city. I am happy to email that to anyone along with the answers. Each answer gives a little bit of a history lesson and is kind of fun.

I tried to make a list of some of the this we did this year.

• tour of the White House (call your congressman 6 weeks in advance to get tickets)
  
• Mt. Vernon 18th Century Craft Fair (this is in mid September)
• National Christmas Tree lighting Ceremony (camped out for Tickets)
• Baltimore Aquarium
• Cherry Blossom Festival (March 29 - April 13, 2008)
  
• Arlington National Cemetery
• Old Town Alexandria
• Antietam
• Harper's Ferry
• Roosevelt Island
• Fords Theatre (closed until Nov. 2008) seeing A Christmas Carol is a must see in December
• Glen Echo Park
• Great Falls MD
• Annapolis
• Bowling in China Town
• Union Station
• The Awakening
• National Cathedral (go to the top and get great photos)
  
• Embassy Row
• FDR Memorial (don't go here without reading the history of this memorial, it is AMAZING!)
  
• General Mead Memorial
• First Infantry Division Memorial (this is in front of the White house, the big red 1)
• Navy Memorial (the charging of the fountains is in the Spring, it is the only time the water is stopped and they bring in water from all 7 seas)
• top of the Washington Monument (get tickets online in advance only $1.50 charge)
• World War II Memorial
  
• Lincoln Memorial
• Korean Memorial
• Vietnam War Memorial on Memorial Day
• Textile Museum
• African American Civil War Museum
• National Museum of Health & Medicine (on Walter Reed Campus, see Dan Sickles leg)
• National Zoo
• National Portrait Museum (this book is a must read before you go)
  
• Museum of the American Indian (eat here!!)
• National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden
• Renwick Art Gallery (one of my favorites)
• National Archives
• Woodrow Wilson House
  
• American History Museum (will reopen Summer 2008, many items are at Air and Space)
• Air & Space on the National Mall (the McDonald's there has cool Air & Space happy meal toys)
• Air & Space , Udvar-Hazy Center by Dulles airport (Sat before Halloween they have a great scare in the Air event)
• Bureau of Engraving and Printing (loved this too went with David and Lenessa, ticket information here. )
• The beach at Ocean City
• Assaeague State Park and saw wild horses running along the beach
• Library of Congress National Book festival (Sept. 29, 2007) a must!
• renaissance Festival (would not do again)
• Whites Ferry
• Historic Leesburg
• Gettysburg
• Lucketts
• Easter Egg Roll at the White House (tickets are very hard to get for this!)
  
• National Art Museum
  
• Smithsonian Castle information center (a great place to start, even though this is one of the last things we have done) you can send mail here that get's hand cancelled with a smithsonian stamp
  
• Spy Museum
• Smithsonian Carousel (every kid needs to rid it once)

My Favorite Finds are:

Ribbon Outlet 857 Willow Circle, Hagerstown, MD 301.745.4714
Value Village 227 University blvd. E Hyattsville MD 301.4222406
Great Stuff by Paul 10 North Carrol Street, Frederick MD 21701
Homestead Farms 156000 Sugarland Road, Poolseville, MD 20837
Barbara Fritchie Candy Stick Resturant W US 40 Frederick, MD 301.662.2500

Favorite place to eat - is Ben's Chili Bowl 1213 U Street NW Washington D.C.

White Events Anyone can go to!

1. Garden Tour Summer July 21 & August 11th. Fall is sometime in October and Spring is sometime in March. Tickets are so easy to get to this and you can get them the day of.
2. Christmas Tree lighting Ceremony (must sleep out for tickets)
3. Easter Egg roll (also camp out for tickets, I think military might get in with ID)
4. Tours (call your congressman, give it 6 weeks to process your social security number)

Some of my other tips.

• Get large magnifying glasses for your kids to take to museums and nature centers. It keeps them really quite in Art Museums. It is the ultimate art of distraction. I bought mine from this seller on Ebay.
• Get a National Parks Passport only $7.00. makes a great wedding gift.
• The more you read and study about each place you visit the more you will get out of it. I try to find any children's book on each monument or Smithsonian before we go. Children's books are a fast read and give you the highlights.
  

It was a fun night and great for me to get together what we did this year. I missed Annie Kate's swim meet and was kind of sad. She finished first in the back stroke and knocked 5 seconds off her time from last week. This girl is a FISH!

So I will send 11.5 yards of patriotic themed ribbon to the first person who can answer my question that I asked the class.

Which Presidential Monument has replaced the current statue
of the President and why? (no googling)

** and it still amazes me a year ago I did not know ANY of this!**

kind of funny

I just got a call from the a girl in my church group who asked me to do a class in June for the women at my chruch, on what to do in the D.C. area.

The date of the class will almost hit the excact date of our one year mark of when we moved here, and they are asking me?

I must give credit to the above photo. I did NOT take it but love it.

no couch potatoes here.

Our fun filled weekend last weekend all started off with sending my daughter to school looking like this. Last Friday was Wacky Friday and they need to dress accordingly. We put chopsticks in AK's pony tails and they worked better than the wire for Pippi Longstocking at Halloween. In the middle of the day I realized I had sent her to school and had not made her a lunch. Spending the morning dressing wacky was a little distracting for me, I forgot to feed my kid.

My brother Bevan and his wife Amanda came into town for the weekend. They made plans to come into town even before they knew they would get to go to the best concert in town this weekend - John Cougar Mellencamp! he dropped the Cougar but I seem to have not.

this photo courtesy of The Washington Post

It was at Walter Reed in the Old Red Cross Building. The building had lots of character. We all estimated that there was less than 150 people there. It was up close and personal.

this photo courtesy of The Washington Post

His band was great and the violinist you see in this photo was awesome!
We went with our neighbors, our friend from New Orleans, Eric and my brother and his wife. I had told them all that I become like a statue at concerts and really don't get into music like my personality my lead someone to think otherwise. But for some reason when those High School songs started a playin' I turned into a giddy school girl! It was so much fun!

does he not look so good for 56!

Amanda :) this video I put on just for you. It is Pink Houses.

I don't know if there would have been any other performer that I would have known so many of the words to the songs. When he started singing Jack and Diane - I surprised even myself with how excited I was.

just a little a little photo to add to "me in d.c."

Our friend Eric was nice enough to take the photo, but I wish I would have now insisted he was in it. Other than him not being in it, it is the greatest photo because you can still see the 80's musical bug that is still on our faces!
The night become complete when we made a stop at Ben's Chili Bowl. Please, Please if you are coming to D.C. put this on your list of places to eat! My favorite is the chili cheese fries, with the cheese and chili on the side to dip the fries into, the half smoke split with mustard and onions and a banana chocolate shake. Oh my it was so good and yummy.then make sure you sprinkle some of this Texas Pete Hot Sauce it is on every table. Bevan and Amanda brought us a huge bottle and we put it on everything!

Saturday

Annie Kate's Spring Fair was on Saturday. It was small and in the parking lot, but Annie Kate said "this is one of my favorite things we have done since we moved here" The cotton candy was free, pink and unlimited so what could be better!
Annie Kate did a little rock climbing, jousting, plastic necklace winning and cotton candy consumption.
They had lots of old fashioned carnival games and Caroline had difficultly understanding you just pick one prize, I think she dug three out of the bucket.

Caroline and her cousin Liam - these two are like twins - in looks and personality.

Liam and Caroline rode the train


Paddle boats.

we then went to ride the paddle boats at the Washingtonian Center. Annie Kate has been asking to do this since the weekend we moved into town. She was thrilled.
Bevan's family looked so stinkin cute on the paddle boat and in their life vests. Dang my brother is cute!

They were much faster than our slow boat. We had a great time and it was wonderful to do it before it gets so hot that you may be tempted to jump in the dirty pond.

Saturday night Jeff and I went to Manassas Virginia to go skating with the youth from our ward. I have not been roller skating in about 4 years. I forget how much I love it. It also brings back some fun childhood memories. I had the most awesome blue and yellow tennis shoe roller skates as a kid. I can still remember the day I tried them on at the store.

Jeff skating with one of the kids from the ward

Jeff and I are fair skaters, but we totally skate like the 80's. I don't really know how to describe that or what that looks like, be we were laughing at ourselves - we kind of had the groove on. We skated around and around holding hands... it was cheesy but sweet.

Sunday

One of the houses near our church building. This patchwork brick is so cool

Today was ward conference. We have a new Stake President and it was great to meet him. He came in and talked to the kids in primary and was so cute with them! He looks young, really tan, does triathlons, wore a pink tie , knew how to relate to kids and really brought the spirit in the room.
Caroline and her cousin Liam sat on the front row and were so fun to watch. They came to the front of the room and sang "Popcorn Popping" and it was like something out of a church movie. If the stake would not have been there I would have whipped out my camera which was next to me.

Arlington

We took Bevan and Amanda to Arlington National Cemetery after church. I just love this place. I have not been back since last summer and not dripping in sweat makes this place so much more enjoyable.

My Arlington tips are pay the $6.00 for the tour bus. The place is huge and if time is a constraint it will be difficult to see it all without it. And you can always walk around but having the bus option is so nice.

And if your name begins with the initial A - H take your photo in front of the letter at the Memorial Amphitheater.

Sally Jane in front of President Kennedy's grave.
Sally Jane's white dress still white even after church and running around
now that is a Sunday Miracle.
One of my favorite photos of the day.

So busy, wonderful weekend! This weekend i may just sit on the couch and eat potato chips.... oh no I can't just do that. i hear the ribbon outlet calling my name, "Kristi, come visit me"