Arlington Cemetery and the Smithsonian Museum of American History

I got the opportunity to go into Washington DC again, and though it hadn't been in my original plan, I decided to go to Arlington Cemetery right as the metro was pulling up to the train stop. It was so last minute I nearly got hit by the automatic doors as I exited.

I looked at the map and found the location of "the tomb of the unknown soldier." On my way there I saw this amphitheater below. I've never heard of a graveyard with an amphitheater.

The soldiers who guard this tomb are at absolute attention. You can't distract them at all (not that I tried).

There's a beautiful view of the city beyond the tomb.

It's a HUGE cemetery and it took me a long time to get where I wanted to go. Luckily there were lots of pretty things to distract me.

This is the tomb of President and Jackie Kennedy.

I wanted to see the US Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial), and passed the Symbol of Friendship along the way.

And after a LOT of walking, I finally arrived at the thing I most wanted to see. This was the entire reason I decided to get off early on the metro instead of going into downtown DC.

It's really awe inspiring to be see.

It's considerably larger than it appears in pictures, and it was really neat to look at it from multiple angles.

I finally got too cold to stay outside, so I wandered into some of the different museums downtown, including the Smithsonian.

I really like Asian art. There's always so many interesting creatures and so many bright colors.

Here's the Indian god Ganesha.

This was one page of an epic book. I wish I'd had time to read the whole story. Every page is in the museum.

I liked these wolves.

We weren't allowed to take pictures of it, but the Smithsonian holds the original flag that inspired Francis Scott Key's "The Star Spangled Banner."

I wandered through the museum (quickly since I didn't have much time before it closed) to the nautical wing,

the train wing,

and the currency wing. It was interesting to see all the old coins and currency from colonial days.

I also got to see the recently built Julia Child's kitchen. Julie and her husband go to visit it at the end of the movie "Julie and Julia."

They even had a wing dedicated to first ladies' dresses.

This display is dedicated to the hard working washer women of the 19th and 20th centuries.

This is a preserved section of the Greensboro NC Woolworth's. It's from the civil rights movement where black people would "sit in" the "white only section" in order to protest against racial discrimination.

These puppet shows were parodies of the British taxation on American colonists that ultimately led to the Boston Tea Party. They even had a digital puppet show that I got to watch.

These were the outfits that the Lincolns wore on the fatal night that they attended Ford's theater.

And lastly, there was one of the original dumbo cars from the World's Fair when Walt Disney exhibited his ideas for a future Disneyland.

Washington DC Temple and The Battle of Bull Run

Christy, my mom's cousin's wife (which I guess makes her my first cousin in law once removed!), was quite the historian. She drove me over to the site of the Battle of Manassas (sometimes known as the Battle of Bull Run), and told me all about it. These were some of the soldier's outfits and their weapons.

This is a statue of General "Stonewall" Jackson. He got his nickname from his efforts here in the first battle of Bull Run when his soldiers cried "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall!"

This is me with my cousin Victoria's son Landon. He was a bundle of energy and a lot of fun.

This rebuilt house belonged to an elderly lady, Mrs Judith Henry, who refused to be moved in spite of repeated warnings. The house was hit repeatedly and she ended up dying from her wounds.

This monument was built to honor the many who died in this bloody battle.

Here's Christy and Landon and me and Landon with Stonewall Jackson.

This chart shows how many more people were killed during the civil war compared to any other war the United States fought in. Each red man is 10,000 deaths. Civil war is absolutely devastating to a nation!

On a happier note, Christy was also kind enough to take me to see the Washington DC LDS temple. Wow! It's really beautiful! When you drive up to it from the freeway in the evening, it looms over like a beautiful, white castle. When it was first built, the government actually had to ask the temple workers to dim the lights since too many people were getting into car accidents from staring at it.

They also had the Visitor's Center decorated for Christmas, which I loved! I could walk through Christmas lights all day long.

My favorite were the purple and green Tulip lights.

But I still enjoyed all the rest they had displayed.

They even had a pretty large nativity scene like the one at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Oscar and I prefer to decorate with blue, silver, and white at Christmas time, which everyone thinks is weird, so I always appreciate it when I see it elsewhere.

Though I would have liked to stay outside and stare at the lights all evening long, it did get pretty cold and we wandered into the visitor's center. I even found an Italian sister missionary to talk to.

I loved what they'd done with the Christmas trees inside.

They were all decorated to represent different nationalities, like the ones I'd seen when I went to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

I also adored the nativity set room. There were hundreds of nativity sets from all around the world that church members had brought in for display.

This one carved out of the egg shell was incredible! I can barely crack an egg properly let alone carve a nativity out of it.

It was all just so fascinating to see how so many different nations represent the nativity story.

Look at this glass set!

I really enjoyed this Native American nativity.

And this Guatemalan set was adorable. I love their clothing!