Washington DC

So over Spring Break, Christian was able to go and present his summer research at a conference in Washington DC. Somehow I convinced him to take me and then we convinced the Riggs to come, too! It was so much fun! Be prepared for a ton of pictures to follow! The best part was being able to spend so much time with friends and family! I'm convinced the Riggs would make the best of roommates! Thanks guys for such a great time and for taking all of our pictures!Here we are in the airport ready for take off! Tyson slept the entire way there and half the way back! The last flight we got quite a few contemptuous looks and quite a bit of advice as we left the plane. Overall, I felt like it was a success!
They had the most beautiful gardens by the capitol building. Here is Tyson by one of my mother-in-law's favorite flowers! They made me think of you!
The National Museum of Art housed the only Da Vinci painting in the North American Continent. The lady had to tell us to "back away from the painting!" I was more impressed with the other artwork anyway!
One of the best parts about Washington DC is everything is free! Here we are checking our reflexes at the Air and Space museum...Lyndsay was by far the best!
There was so much to see and learn! Here I learned we were spying on the Russians from outer space which actually led to the end of the cold war as we could see they weren't hiding nuclear weapons from us! Science wins again!
Most of the museums had kids on field trips walking through and they all thought our babies were adorable! I don't think they have as many babies around there as other places! They all seemed surprised to see them!
Like father...
...like son!

When we toured the capitol building in Austin, we learned that Texas had sent two statues to DC. I thought that was really strange until we went to DC and realized that EVERY State had sent two statues to DC! That made me feel a lot better about Texas! Here we are by all of the States we can claim. Montana, the last best place!!
Utah...where I was born and where we fell in love :)
Texas--the place we have grown to love!Here we are in the Library of Congress taking a pit-stop for Tyson!!Here we are in front of the White House. Christian's old mission companion, Blaine, took this picture with his phone since you aren't allowed to bring ANYthing inside!This is the guy who set us up on the amazing tours we got to see! Thank you so much Blaine! We really had a wonderful time and owe you guys big time!
We got to tour the capitol building, the white house, see the original constitution, the Declaration of Independence (which was rolled up in the President's drawer for years!) tour the Library of Congress (one of the most architecturally beautiful buildings I have ever seen), all of the monuments (but our camera was out of batteries...too bad!), most of the museums, and even got our naps in most days! Thank you Blaine for setting us up with all of the tours! It was amazing to see the House and Senate at work and fall in love with America again. My favorite part was seeing the actual flag which inspired Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner" which was pieced together and preserved in the dark. Best of all was seeing Tyson and Christian together so much. Tyson would wake up the following week in the middle of the night crying, "Daddy! Where'd he go?" We both had to go through withdrawals with school starting up again!