We woke up to a beautiful day in DC. We had a meeting with Jay from the state of Maryland at 8 am for breakfast. He was so kind and drove into DC and met us at the restaurant at our hotel to make things easy for us.  We so appreciated it.  He also brought treats for the kids which they really appreciated to.  Once again, so fun to meet great people and learn about them. Our great kids once again got themselves up and walked to the nearest McDonald's for breakfast.  When our meeting was done we met up with the kids, loaded up the car and left it parked in the garage and headed out for a FULL day of sightseeing on foot!  We didn't have long to see it all--from 10 am to 5 pm so we were moving quickly!  It is amazing what you can fit into a day if you push!

Our hotel was just across the street from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, so we started there.  So fun and so much to see there!!  We saw the actual "plane" the Wright Bros. flew for the first time, the vehicle that landed on the moon, the Spirit of St. Louis and many more. We also all touched a moon rock.  Abygail's favorite part was the interactive kids area. Our couple of hours there flew by and then we were off to the Museum of Natural History (again....they look much closer on the map than they feel on your feet).  None of us were big fans of that museum, so we quickly moved on to the Museum of American History.  Now that had some great stuff!  We saw the Magna Carta, THE flag that was flying over Ft. Henry when Francis Scott Key penned the words to the Star Spangled Banner, and the Philadelphia (a wooden boat from the revolutionary war)  The ship was Bryan's favorite thing.
 
We were on a tight schedule since we had tickets to tour the Capitol at 2 pm, so we stayed as long as we dared, and then grabbed a quick cab to haul us all to the capital building.  That was perfect!!  It would have been quite the walk, and our feet were already tired.  At the capital building we saw a 15 minute movie and then our tour officially began.  Our tour guide was a little old man who had an incredible memory and a raspy voice.  I was glad that they gave everyone their own headset and it is connected to the microphone on your tour guide, so we could all hear him in the chaos of the capitol or even if we stepped away from the group looking at things.  Since he was short, and Bryan was the tallest person in our group. He asked Bryan to be his buddy and walk right beside him so everyone could always spot him and know which way our group was going in the chaos of tours (about 10 all going on at once). It reminded me of when Greg Arnett led us all through Disneyland.  Our tour guide knew the order and date of admittance for every state in the Union.  He would ask everyone where they were from and then tell them when their state joined.  He also spoke 6 languages fluently and 59 languages well enough to interact with people.  He was quite the guy and loved talking to everyone.  We didn't necessarily get a whole lot of information per se about the capitol, but we got to see the Rotunda and room of statues.  To go into the rooms where the Senate and House of Representatives meet you need tickets from your Sen./Rep. and we didn't have those, so we didn't see those areas.

We left the capitol and went to the National Archives.  This was also a favorite!  We saw the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. http://www.archives.gov/museum/visit/images/rotunda-visitors-l.jpg  Amazing to see these documents from the history of our great country!!  A taxi ride back to our hotel and by 5 pm we were on the road again because we had another business meeting in Delaware for dinner. However, we had missed the vietnam war memorial, so we did a quick drive there and Bryan dropped us off and circled the block while me and the kids ran to see it.  Leaving DC at 5 pm was crazy with traffic.  Google was constantly rerouting us to try and save us time.  (I think Bryan is is secretly in love with google only its not so secret).  I was just glad to be back in the car because my feet were on FIRE!  which isn't good because Saturday is going to be running on foot as well.

Again, another great couple to meet with (Bill & Martha) and this was the first time we brought our kids along to the meeting.  (They have already signed up with us, so this was just a meet and greet to put a name with the face). They were kind and funny and brought their one year old son Nixon to dinner as well.  They picked a Chinese restaurant and the food was delicious.  The kids were great and the meeting went really well.  Back in the car for the final driving as we wanted to sleep that night in New Jersey so we were where we wanted to start our morning with Caffrey Family History sites.