I am not a tour guide.

We ventured to Washington D.C. last weekend and here's how it went.  We had our bike with Katelyn attached in the trailer.  Then a wonderful ward member let us borrow a bike and we were off.  We drove to D.C. and parked close to the sites.  I have been here once before about 4 years ago so we decided I would lead the tour.  I had my map and we were off.  Our first stop was the cute little White House.  David thought it would be so much bigger and more majestic, but when I mentioned that it is just the president that lives there, he was okay with how "small" it was...silly boy.

We headed down Pennsylvania Avenue and we passed by the Navy Memorial and the National Archives building.  This is when I realized how terrible of a tour guide I was.  Throughout the tour, we would pass by buildings and memorials and museums that are a big deal, I would tell David what it was and take a guess at why it was important.  Like with the F.B.I building, I think I said something like, "I think there could be spies in there watching us through their tinted windows and talking into their sleeves." or with the National Archive Building, "That is where they probably keep old stuff that is important to our nation. I think this building was in the movie National Treasure with Nicholas Cage."

Heading down Pennsylvania Avenue you can see the Capitol Building from far off.  David thought that was pretty cool because he was so nervous about the bike lane being in the middle of the road that it surprised him when I said, "Hey look!  That's a cool building!"  I promise I really did know it was the Capitol and I wanted to see him react as he realized what it was.

From the Capitol we turned around and enjoyed the view of the Washington Monument.  They are doing construction on the main reflection pool in front of it and David was a little bummed about that.

We trekked all the way across and passed tons of museums along the way to the Lincoln Memorial.  My legs were dying at this point.  I was either out of shape, tired from hauling Katelyn behind me, or maybe those "no flat solid rubber/foam tires" were really heavy.  Probably a combo of all three!

I love this next picture because it shows Katelyn's perfectly rounded cheeks...still soft and they jiggle with every cute little step of hers.

I went to lock up the bikes and David went off walking with Katelyn.  She headed right for the stairs.

After the first couple big flights, Katelyn had people cheering her on and even though David wanted to give her a break and carry her up, Katelyn just kept on going up each big step.  The last little bit she was worn out and she tried switching which leg went first, but she ended up crawling up and pulling herself up the last few tough ones.  She made it all the way to the top and we weren't the only ones proud of her!

David's favorite part of this adventure was seeing how big Lincoln was.  He's so much bigger than that itty bitty guy on the penny :)  It is pretty neat!

I knew that there was so much more to see, but my legs couldn't take it and so we headed back to the car.  We got a "little" nervous when we realized that neither of us knew exactly which parking garage we were parked in.  We were so excited to get going and missed that minor detail.  I back tracked and guessed at a couple of blocks we might be at.  As we were heading that way, we got even more nervous seeing all the parking garages that were closed.  We asked before we left when the place closed and we heard his thick accent say 9, but when he told us where to park we heard B3, but there was no B3 but there was a P3 so we parked there.  So we were REALLY hoping we didn't mis-hear him, because we were not about to snuggle up under the dirty blankets the bums were pulling out for the night.

Lucky for us, I guessed right and we went right to our parking garage!!!  What a relief!

We packed up and headed out to get some dinner.  All the places we wanted to go in D.C. are closed on Saturdays and our Halloween candy only did so much for our hunger and we weren't about to eat Katelyn's food since we can control our hunger anger much more than we can control hers :)

We headed out to hang out with family for the night and passed by the Jefferson Memorial on our way out.  The sun was setting on it just right and I could see Jefferson in there standing strong.  Very pretty.

There is SOOOO much more to see in D.C. and David got a good taste of it.  My legs have never felt so exhausted and I tried stretching them and rubbing them, but they kept aching more and more through the night.  I took some Ibuprofen and went to bed scared about how bad it was going to be in the morning.  When I woke up, I was thrilled that my tired muscles enjoyed the night's rest so much that my legs felt completely normal!  It was strange, but I had nothing to complain about so we were all happy!

Now...what to see next?