Monday    10.5  miles  -24,000 steps  - 8 points
Tuesday     9     miles  -22,595 steps  - 6 points
Wednesday 6.6  miles  -15,677 steps  - 4 points

OMG we have walked over 15 25 miles in 3 days (my bad math skills were showing).  Now that is pretty impressive considering I had whining children along the way and my head didn’t explode! 

We have seen “all” the sights and I think Jackson enjoyed the museums the most.  Clayton & Shelby found bits and pieces of the Smithsonian interesting, but Jackson complained we were moving too fast and he didn’t have time to read…that’s a good sign he was interested (naturally we slowed down a bit for him).  He even enjoyed the art museum and that I did not expect.  The exhibits have all become more interactive and many are brand new as of April 2010.  We got lucky when we just stopped by the Supreme Court and got in on the last tour of the day. We thought they were still in session.  An unexpected, but totally fascinating tour.

                    “Arguing before the Supreme Court”

Seems that the cherry blossoms had peaked by the time we got here.  I think it became much warmer than they had expected.  We’ve experienced a mini heat wave on the days we were here, but they were beautiful, breezy and low humidity even with the high temps.

Jackson loved the Air and Space Museum.  Clayton really liked the National Archives and naturally Shelby and I enjoyed the First Ladies exhibit.  Michelle’s dress is unbelievably beautiful up close and she has large feet (her Jimmy Choo’s were easily size 9+). The Museum of American History has always been a favorite but we also enjoyed the Museum of Natural History.  The gems and stones were as beautiful as ever and the Hope diamond is so much easier to see now with it’s new exhibit.

Tonight we plan on driving back into the city to see the monuments lit up at night.  We promised Shelby we would drive by the Jefferson as we decided not to walk that far today.  Today we went to the National Archives and saw the Declaration of Independence (which is so faded you can barely see the writing), Constitution and Bill of Rights.  No photos allowed inside. 

We then walked over to the White House and I mean the minute we get there, the police shoo everyone from the walkway in front and close the gates to the eclipse so no one could get right in front of the building to take pictures.  The police said they didn’t know how long it would take and they couldn’t tell us why it was closed.  About 10 minutes later it just opened back up with no explanation.  We were the first to get right in front of the fence and get our pictures taken….



I have loads of photos that I will write about once I get home.  Can’t wait to get some scrapbook pages done with all my new photos.  I’ll close tonight with this family photo in front of the Mall:

Signing off for now doodlebugs!!