Some Touring of DC

Here are some of the cool monuments and other places we have visited in DC!

This is me and Danny in front of the Washington Monument, normally you can go to the top of it, but since there was an earthquake here right before we came out, no one can go up right now because there was some damage. 

This is one of my favorite memorials that we have seen out here, it is stars representing the soldiers that died during WWII. Each star represents 100 soldiers... "The Price of Freedom."

They have a column for every state... so here we are in front of the Utah column!

Here we are in front of the Lincoln Monument!

So normally that muddy pond is a big reflection pond... but it is under construction now, so you can only see a small part of the Washington Monument reflection.

This is part of the Lincoln Monument. Lincoln is known for the many great things he did as President of the United States... these are stamps from all over the world that have him on them. Danny is pointing at the stamp from Colombia!

Here we are in front of the White House, Danny was pretty tired and hungry at this point... 

But we went to Red Robin after touring all the monuments all day for his birthday! So he was happy again!

Danny gave me a tour of the Capitol Building... not going to lie, his tour was a 

lot better than the first one we took!

This is on the Senate side of the Capitol Building... normal tours don't get to go to this part... so it was pretty cool! A lot of the tiles and paint are original from when it was built, not always the prettiest, but its cool that it has been there for so long!

This is the oldest statue in the Capitol Building, its of George Washington... if you couldn't tell.

This is little door is on the House side of the Capitol Building... we aren't sure what it leads to but we think that it is either a door for the House Elves or a door that leads to Narnia!

We went to the Botanical Garden that is just to the side of the Capitol... they had some really cool plants and flowers there.

I think I liked the garden a bit more than Danny, so its probably good that it wasn't too big!

Mt. Vernon

     This is our trip to Mt. Vernon.  This is where George Washington lived and is now buried.  We got to see a lot of his land, his gardens, slave living quarters, blacksmith shop, and of course, his huge house.  His mansion is right on the Potomac River and we were also able to go down to the wharf behind his house and see the river close up...it is such a wide river!  It is more like a lake to us and some parts of it are honestly wider than parts of Pineview!  It was really neat though and a fun historical adventure!

This was Danny's amazing photo shot.  He said that we should probably have our own little photography business on the side, haha.

The shoe-making/leather-working room.

Blacksmith shop

Us in front of a carriage that Washington rode in.

Washington's Mansion in the background.

This is me in front of Washington's first tomb.  He was buried here and then was moved about 30 years later to the tomb where he now resides.

This is the current Washington Tomb.

Me behind the mansion.

And the last part of Palmyra

     On the last day of our adventure in Palmyra, NY we went to the Hill Cumorah. 

     

This is a monument they built on top of the Hill Cumorah

This a view from the top of the Hill!

     The last place we visited before hitting the road back to DC was the Book of Mormon publication site.  

      We got to see the process of how they made the entire Book of Mormon, it was quite the process to make a book back then!

     One of the really cool parts about this site is that they have a lot of the original paintings of the pictures we see all the time at church.  This one is one of my favorites.

     This is a Bible that was sold at the same time that the Book of Mormon was being published, next to it is one of the original 5,000 copies that were made.

More Palmyra, NY

     This is at the Peter Whitmer Farm, father of David Whitmer who is one of the three witnesses.  This is was where the Church was reorganized in 1830.

     The sister missionary here told us some really cool stories and miracles that happened to help the Book of Mormon get finished.  

      This is inside the small house, that the Church was reorganized.  There were over 50 people crammed in this room to be a part of this event.

      This is the upstairs room of the Peter Whitmer home, this is where Joseph Smith finished the Book of Mormon.

      These are pictures of the homes of Joseph Smith and his family.  This one is the log home which is really quite small.  The church took many years to study and build it so that they could make it as close to the original as possible. They even used the same tools that they would have used at the time the original was built.

Log Home

      This is inside the frame home of Joseph Smith, it was a lot bigger than they log home.  The sister missionary told a bunch of stories of things that happen inside both homes, like when the mobs would break in and try to look for the Gold Plates, or when the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith during the night to teach him.  These are stories that we have all heard over and over again, but it is different to hear them in the same place that they have happened!

Frame Home

Frame Home

Palmyra, NY

      The drive to Palmyra took about 7 hours (that's not including the time that we stopped in Gettysburg on the way).  It was a long drive for just the 3 day weekend, but getting to go was worth it! And even though it was a really long drive, the land we passed through was beautiful!! These two pictures don't even come close to doing it justice!

    We stayed at Palmyra Inn, it was a really cool place, it isn't Church owned, but is owned by members of the Church.  We got one of the very last rooms this weekend because they had two big bus tours that were staying here over the weekend as well.  The hotel is right next to the stake center, where we went to church and right next to the stake center was the Palmyra Temple, so it was a fun place to stay!  I think one of the funniest things about our Palmyra stay was that when we checked in at 7:00 on a Saturday night we asked the guy at the front desk if he knew of anywhere good to eat... and he was like "Oh man, not much is open at this time"... as though we were checking in at midnight! Palmyra is a small town, and they like to get to bed early I guess! We did find a place to eat in a little town right next to Palmyra, they were "Open Late" on Saturdays... which means they closed at 9:00!

    After church on Sunday we went to the Sacred Grove.  It was so beautiful! The sun was shining and it was perfect weather! We walked around for quite a while.  It was so quiet and peaceful there.  It was amazing to think about what had happened there.