east coast trip, part 4

better late than never, we now bring you the fourth and final installment of our east coast trip. last time we left off, we finished an exhausting day of driving through amish country (and multiple east coast states) with an evening walk in washington dc and grilled cheese sandwiches.

since the next day would be our only day in the city we did as much as we could without exhausting ourselves. we started the day by waiting in line for tickets at the national holocaust museum -- one of the newer museums in dc and a popular destination. despite not getting there super early we got tickets to return later in the afternoon.

our first stop after that was the american history museum. there was lots to see and we didn't have the time or the energy to see everything, much less photograph it.


carter was a good sport... by the end of the day most of us wish we'd been carried around as well.


some guys wear "shoulder bags" that look a lot like purses. well, this is not one of those bags. it's a purse. ah, but don't worry -- it's laura's purse.


our favorite part of the american history museum was the original "star spangled banner" -- the very flag that flew over fort mchenry during the war of 1812 that inspired the song by the same name. in years past the flag was hung prominently in the entryway of the museum, but it has since been moved to its own permanent exhibit under controlled lighting conditions to preserve it for as long as possible. we weren't allowed to take photos but we did find this flag-like modern sculpture (which now hangs where the flag used to hang) interesting as well.


our next stop was the national air and space museum, which was a hit with austin's inner six-year-old.


the air and space museum has many famous planes, like the wright brothers' plane, the nasa/air force supersonic planes, and this plane -- the one charles lindburgh used to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight.


can't remember what this is (well, it's a satellite) and why it's famous, but the photo is interesting.

after the air and space museum we needed to head over to the holocaust museum to finish up our afternoon. before going through the main museum we visited a temporary exhibit on nazi propaganda which austin found interesting as he did his bfa senior project and thesis on a similar topic.

photographs weren't allowed at the holocaust museum either, so we don't have anything to show for our trip, but it was a very interesting but sobering experience. the museum was able to make many of the displays and exhibits personal, which brought things closer to home than reading about them in a high school textbook or watching the history channel.


the next morning we decided to stop by the arlington national cemetery on our way back to new jersey. lots and lots of grave markers.


we stopped by the tomb of the unknown soldier.


we don't have tons of photos from arlington because austin was using dad/scott's camera most of the time. which reminds us -- if you happen to check out the lds church news from may 29, you'll see one of austin's photos from the cemetery. yep, famous.

that night austin and braden and dad/scott went with ty to a new jersey nets game. we picked the best game to see as the nets won a crazy double-overtime game against the playoff-bound chicago bulls. laura and jenna and mom/cheryl got tasty new jersey pizza (jenna says it's better than new york and we won't argue) and ice cream and watched a movie. it was a nice way to end our trip.

we had a great time visiting jenna and ty and carter and enjoyed tagging along with scott/cheryl/braden. austin had a great time showing laura around new york and we enjoyed being with family.

it's good to be home and we've been busy since then. we'll catch up on our blog one of these days.