Full day of DC! Keels go to Canada Day 6

So this is where our whirlwind tour of the Eastern US starts to gain speed. We already had our Capital building tour set up for the afternoon and we knew we wanted to tour the Bureau of Engraving & Printing. The Capital tour is arranged by your US Senator, the Bureau of Engraving starts passing out tickets for the day at 8am.

Since we did not know how busy or popular this would be, we decided that one of us should go get tickets for a little later in the morning while the other got the kids up and ready for the day. Dad so graciously volunteered to "run" down at 7:40 from the hotel to the ticket booth  (around a mile away). It was such a sacrifice for him to get up early and run in the cool air to get the tickets, it put him at doing 2 more miles more than the rest of us for our days walking.... which he reminded us of all day long. It was such an incredible feat he accomplished while mom got four kids up, dressed and packed the room so we could put all of our luggage in the van before starting our adventure of the day. 

  While we were waiting on our tour for the Bureau of Engraving Paul and Sarah walked down to the Holocaust museum entrance while me and the rest of the kids waited.

 We may have gotten a little goofy...

 Sarah and Abby in front of a million dollars in 10 dollar notes.

 

 

Pictures were not allowed during the actual tour, only in the waiting area and the gift shop. In fact, if you were caught even with your phone out, it would be confiscated and handed over to security to be checked. I know some kids in schools that would so get their phones taken away during the tour.

It was very neat to see them printing $5 and $20 bills! Fun fact: at the end of the tour, there are questions that have to be reported to security if you ask them. Don't worry, I didn't learn from personal experience, our tour guide told us the questions you couldn't ask her and that she had to report anyone who did ask.

 

We stood in front of a sheet of uncut $1 bills in the gift shop. It was here that Paul realized he didn't have his drivers license or credit card in his wallet. He called the hotel to see if they had accidentally kept it the night before when we checked in, they said no.... We had no idea where it was.

Next, we went to get the kids National Mall Jr Ranger information sheets. Our original plan had been to hit the monuments and museums between tours, but we quickly realized that walking the mall and just seeing monuments was going to eliminate visiting the museums. After getting our Jr. Park Ranger pack for the Washington Monument and speaking with a Park Ranger that told us monuments don't close but museums do, we set out for the Natural History Museum.

Not everyone enjoys selfies as much as dad...

 The kids loved seeing the animals on display.

 

They also loved the hands on activities in the children's area!

 Yes, Chloe is with us but is not visible in the only non blurry picture of us with the elephant.

 

We only had time to explore the first floor of the Natural History Museum, we were getting hungry and still had to walk to the Capital for our tour. We ate lunch at the National Parks snack shack right across from the museum. It was not outrageously priced and the food was decent. The chili for the chili cheese fries was definitely from a can though. 

 

The Capital tour was amazing.

 

They give you headphones to hear your tour guide. Our tour guide was able to say a greeting in many languages and even hold small conversations in some. 

We were able to tour the Rotunda which was incredible to see.

 

 Got a picture with Ronald Regan. Ok, maybe it was his statue.

 We also were able to tour some of the older rooms that are no longer used such as the old Supreme Court chambers and old Congressional Court chambers.

 

  

 

 

 We also went in the National Statuary Hall, which is where the legendary "whisper spot" of John Quincy Adams is located. We actually were able to hear from the other side of the room when standing in that spot.

 

 

 

Our tour ended in the Crypt but we also explored the exhibition hall.

 

 

 After the tour we headed over to the Air and Space Museum.

 Of course Paul had to get a picture of the Star Trek stuff.

 And the Lockheed Martin stuff.

 The kids enjoyed going in the space craft. After that though we were DONE. We were all tired and mom might have been about to get grumpy.

 

When we got to the van we looked in Paul's shorts pockets from the day before to see if his license and credit cards were there, we found them! Once we got loaded we drove by the White House on the way out, which was an adventure to figure out how to do that with all the one way streets.

 We did pull over and park so daddy could take Sarah and PR to the Lincoln memorial and Reflecting Pool. By the time we were in the area both Chloe and Abby were sleeping so I stayed in the van.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That night as we headed to our next stop we stopped for some comfort food. AKA: Chick-Fil-A. This was the first stop where the cups were not Styrofoam, the people up here may not need it to keep their ice from melting 3 minutes after leaving the store but they still don't know what they are  missing. That cup keeps the ice so good...
 As we were leaving, the kids were getting in the van and across the parking lot someone was yelling in Spanish. To which Abigail yells back in her own Spanish sounding made up language. We pushed her on in the car before she picked a fight. Love that girl.

Our landing place for the night is Gettysburg. Tomorrow is the tour of Gettysburg and Hershey PA!