Washington DC Day 4

We stayed on the 14th floor of our hotel (the top floor). We had a beautiful view of a roof top garden.

 The Korean War Memorial

 I loved the etched pictures in the wall.

 I loved that the leaves were still beautiful colors. 

 Part of the Vietnam War Memorial

 This wall is amazing. It is hard to describe how I felt seeing it and all of the names that are on it. 

We watched a couple look up and find a few names. They made rubbings of the names. 

 This is a statue that pays tribute to the women of Vietnam- Faith, Hope, Charity. 

 I loved seeing the memorials but they do have a bit of a sobering effect. Wars are fought for so many reasons and both sides believe their cause is just. After reading so many things and seeing many things while in DC about so many different wars, I felt that there were likely many soldiers and others who may not have been fully committed to the cause their "side" was fighting for but they were committed to something: family, life, liberty, self preservation, freedom, country, God. It is not too different than Helaman and his Title of Liberty he raised that knowing that the things he listed would touch different people and that we are motivated by different reasons that are interconnected.  

 Boy Scouts of America Monument

(We are still trying to figure out why the man as a waving piece of fabric for covering.)

 We loved the American History Museum. Really wished we would have had more time there too. 

Harry Potter's actual costume from the first movie. 

 Julia Child's kitchen

 I can't imagine why we don't have these anymore. 

 Super exciting to find this bit of Mormon history there. It is a sunstone (obviously) from the Nauvoo temple with a commemorative plate. I knew we would show up somewhere in there. 

 Dorothy's slippers- they were not as red as I thought they would be. 

George Washington's actual uniform.

The most amazing thing in this museum was The Star Spangled Banner. The flag for which the song was written. It was huge! You can not photograph it due to the fragile nature of it. It used to hang on the wall but it was falling apart so they took it down and have it in a really nice light, temperature controlled room sized case. I loved reading about the events of the flag being made and that song being written. 

We flew home that evening. We had such a marvelous time. We are most definitely going to take our kids there sometime but we are not going in the summer.  The crowds, heat and humidity would be not so great so fall or spring we will head there sometime. This was the longest we have been away from our kids but it was a really good thing for Peter and I. I don't feel this intense need to do something like that every year but it is definitely something we will do again (especially before my companion pass to fly free expires).