On Saturday morning, we went to Arlington National Cemetery and saw the changing of the guard and a wreath laying ceremony. There was a huge crowd of people there so...
Maria and I hung out close by where no one was. She enjoyed pushing her stroller around and seeing the big building that's right by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Family photo taken by some nice people from Louisiana. They road on a bus for 24 hours or so to come to the March for Life.
After Arlington, we went to the Marines Corps War Memorial. This was another thing that Jack and I had read about so it was a must see...after we figured out how to actually get to it. You could see it, but we couldn't figure out how to actually get close enough to drive to it. As you can see, we finally figured it out.
That afternoon after tossing around what we wanted to do, we ended up going to the Air and Space Museum: Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center out by Dulles Airport. This is where all of the big stuff is that doesn't fit in the downtown D.C. Air and Space Museum including...
the Discover Space Shuttle!
Yeah, it's huge. The kids were pretty good and liked seeing a lot of the different planes, rockets, and other things on display.
Towards the end of our time there, Jeff, Curt, Joan (Curt's wife), and the kids went up in the observation tower where you could see planes coming in to land at Dulles.
The kids checking out the view.
After leaving the space center, we drove into D.C. and found a nice parking spot right behind the National Post Office and Museum, which is right next to Union Station where Curt and Joan went to get something to eat...while we checked out the Post Office Museum. This was another place Jack and I wanted to check out all because of the dog that has a statue there. We'd gotten books from the library about Owney, the mail dog who was a real dog who rode the mail trains back in the late 1800's.
Jack enjoying the mail car.
Checking out Owney, the mail dog and telling Dad about him, since he apparently never read the books when we had them from the library.
The post office museum is in the basement of the post office and is pretty hands on. We all enjoyed it and probably could've stayed a little longer if we would've had time. Well, Maria was slightly weirded out by the statues of the people sitting in the wagon. ;) After this, we grabbed a quick bite of pizza at Union Station and then headed to the National Basilica for mass...which was completely full and we ended up sitting on the floor in the narthex/vestibule/whatever you want to call it area in the back of the basilica. Again, the kids did great for it being that way and again we ran into people we knew...our friend, Mandy, again! We also stayed after mass and checked out the crypt church and other things in the lower basilica including...
Saint Kateri statue and prayer area. Kateri is Mom's confirmation name and the first time she went to D.C. (15 or so years ago) she got her picture taken by the statue.
We also found a side altar in the crypt church that had St. Brigid.
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