Washington DC!

So, what happened was, on Tuesday (a couple weeks ago) we got a phone call. It was from Colten's brother- he asked if we wanted to go with the Young Farmers and Ranchers group (sent by the Farm Bureau) to Washington DC to tour it, and to talk to our senators and representatives from the state of Utah about issues regarding agriculture....we were to leave that Friday. Well, initially both of us were like, ahhhh we have jobs, we have school we can't miss all of this... but then Colten's bro gave colten a talking-to and he was right, this is a once in a lifetime oppurtunity and so we took it! It was soo much fun. Now y'all get to take the trip with us! The above picture is of the changing of the guards outside the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" which is in Arlington Cemetary.

This was IDK what but it was also in arlington, and i didn't think colten was allowed to go sit down there so I didn't go down to that part but colten sure did and we got a pic of it.

These pictures are all in backwards order by the way because this was the last day we were there. This was at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum which was a pretty cool place.

Arlington Cemetary- what a special spirit that resides here! Very cool.

This is Senator Orrin Hatch. May I just mention that we were on the front row during this part because our assignment was to talk to him personally, and somehow colten snuck in a picture- and it really wasn't a moment where it was appropriate for picture taking but he still did it anyway. We took another picture with him where he put his arm around me and said, "I like it when the women stand by me in pictures" we have yet to recieve that pic from email but it was cool too :) I loved this man, he's been doing his job for a loooong time, and he knows what he's talking about.
He said a lot of great things and I agreed with everything he said. Colten and I spoke to him about Estate Taxes but we were telling someone to agree with us when he already whole heartedly did haha. (which we knew but we still had to talk to him) Basically, estate taxes are dumb and he knows it and he is trying to abolish them.

This was us outside the capitol. aren't we cute? :) p.s. i was cold 90% of the time we were there. and everyone kept saying "Oh you guys got good weather to come and enjoy here" and i kept thinking "um, i'm from southern utah people. i dont do well with any cold at all." so i'm wearing this jacket in every pic basically.

Also at one of the smithsonians... the natural history one....this is the BIGGEST DIAMOND IN THE WORLD. and its blue:) kinda cool.

Big mouth shark. Real big mouth shark.

Irish Elk- apparently they were huuuuuge. like this fella for example. its funny, when i went with my fam to england/scotland/wales- in Scotland (i think) in one of the castles, there were antlers on the wall about this same size and they also said it was from an Irish elk- so they couldn't be tooo old but they were huge thats for sure.

In the same museum they also had an african section which i thought was a little random, but there was a lot about Ghana so of course Colten about died of happiness. This is how he would actually barter with ghanaians (whatever it is he's doing with his hands) so we had to take this picture.

She was a nice lady too.

The capitol. Cool pic huh. We thought so.

This was at Old Ebbit's Grill which apparently has been around for like um, forever. Pretty much every president has eaten here and it's a favorite of them. I had crab cakes that were scrumptious. my hair looks a little funny but it rained that day so give me a break.

In the capitol, each state gets to contribute 2 statues of people from their state that are special basically. So ours were Philo T. Farnsworth (who invented the TV and who i'm related to cool huh) and none other than the admired Brigham Young who is shown above. we thought that was awesome.

While touring the capitol our tour guide made us wear head phones so we could hear him talking the whole time, but we were probably only like 5 feet away from him 90% of the time so it was dumb that we had to wear them but i still followed the rules. i was also a little bored of him cuz he was a rude tour guide. but the capitol was cool.

in this room in the capitol there are like 6 huge paintings, and of all people pictured, one of them was Pocahontus (the real one, not disney fantasized one) on her wedding day, idk we didnt take a pic of that cuz i wanted to, but oh well.

inside of the capitol dome

Another picture that was inappropriate to take but colten snuck one anyway, this was where we were learning a little more about all the issues we were to talk to the big guys about.

Public transportation. Interesting. Kinda gross and just exactly what ya see in the movies. I definitely felt out of place every time we used the metro system. Especially if colten was wearing his cowboy hat- we stood out like....i wont say, we just really stood out.

The place Abraham Lincoln got shot. Fords theatre. I couldn't tell ya why but i didn't have a good feeling in this end of town.

The most chinese part of china town was this thing over the road. But we still lived it up in Chinatown.

All of our tour guides told us the same thing, there are about 3 chinese restaurants in china town. So after trying desperately to find somewhere to eat- we ended up following the other couple we were with to a place i wont ever eat at again. i dont look unhappy in this picture, but i was. some of you know where we ended up eating, but i dont wanna tell cuz i am embarrassed about it.

this was in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. Yet again another very interesting tour guide. this was right above a place i cant remember the exact name of but the majority of the people died here. :(

I love my nerd hubby.

All we got to see of the washington dc temple. right there. and we only saw that much cuz we convinced our bus driver to take a small detour. its pretty though.

The next bunch of pics are from Mount Vernon- George Washington's home. this was part of the farm where the slaves lived and the little hut up there is actually a very big grainery. it was cool.

the river down the hill from the house. colten is purposely posing like that fyi. aint he a cutie?

a door down to (what they told us) was where some folks were buried at one time or still might be i can't remember....

just walkin around mt vernon and its hugeness.

view from ole George's back porch. a bit jealous? yes me too.

his house. fun fact for ya (guess that movie) outside of his house looks exactly like it has white bricks covering it. but actually, its wood cut out to look like bricks then covered in the white stuff. who knew?

Washington Monument. This thing is tall. We saw it more close up the first night but that night we didn't have the camera.

This is my hubby outside the White House Visitor's center in which we watched a movie that toured us through the white house because we couldn't go in the actual white house. everyone else on the tour could but we couldn't because we were called short notice--which was because we were in place of another couple that was supposed to go. They apparently do a background check six months in advance. but everyone told us the white house tour was lame. so i think we actually got the better end of the deal.

thats all folks! we had a blast! now i gotta go pack cuz we goin campin. woot woot. yeah for allergies. they;ll probably be awesome on our camping trip.