Monticello

Our last guided tour was to visit Thomas Jefferson's home. The grounds are beautiful. We took a garden tour before the home tour. He was very knowledgeable in many things and plants was one of his specialties. The garderns who take care of his plants today have labeled most the heirloom plants for visitors. They even have TJ or LC on the stakes if they know that Thomas Jefferson in fact planted such plants and LC if they know that Lewis and Clark returned from the west with such seeds.

kitchen

garden

The president would sit in here. 

garden, 3 football fields long

Mount Vernon

We woke up early on Saturday and headed to Mount Vernon to see the home of our first president a place he really liked to be. With the audio tour in hand and a guidebook we were ready to take in stories about his home. The grounds were welcoming as I'm sure is how they felt 200 years ago as well. Lucien enjoyed seeing the blacksmith work on a metal strap for a wooden box.

Red Roof is the Kitchen

Circle Drive

Potomac River

Side of House

Back Porch 

Air and Space Museum

Seeing the Wright Brother's plane, Saturn V boosters and Space Ship One makes one really appreciate the advances and innovation made in flight.

Wright Brothers:

Trying out how the braces worked between the wings.

wing

wing

Space Ship One 

Native American Museum

We were excited a few months ago to find out that the Choctaw Nation would be showcased during the time of our visit to Washington D.C. After touring The Capital we ate the went to the Native American Museum. Lucien enjoyed talking with someone about stickball and arrowheads.  He proceeded to pretend to shoot at things with a bow and arrow.

The Capital

We were very excited to visit The Capital. We used Parking Panda to reserve a parking space in a garage because parking is impossible. We went to Lloyd Doggett's office to pick up our tickets for the tour and chambers. An intern walked us into the Visitors Center using connecting halls from the Cannon Building to the Capital. 

During our capital tour we visited the Dome room. The dome itself is being restored. The art found accounted important moments in the history of our country. 

Abraham Lincoln in Dome Room

 

Statuary Hall we learned is where the House of Representatives once used as their chamber. The whisper spot was a fun interactive moment during the tour. 

Baseball: Yankees Game

This spring Lucien played on a T-Ball team named for the Yankees, so we had to take in a ball game of the famous team while in New York. We took the subway from Brooklyn to the Bronx for the game which drops you off right at the stadium.

Our seats were great. The atmosphere of the crowd and stadium made the game fun even when the game was tied at zero or when the Oriels began to lead. 

The grounds crew danced to songs and the crowd did the wave which went around at least 3 times. 

At the bottom of the 9th with an out and 2 guys on base Beltran came up to hit. Within moments the place was electric as he hit a homerun winning the game!

Earlier in the night we purchased one of the 4 game balls that they sell once the game is over at the stadium store. This will be a great addition to our game room. 

Lego Store New York

We took a walk to visit the Lego Store in New York which is right by Rockefeller Center.

The creations made to showoff sights of New York were a lot of fun to look at in the store.

Our imaginations ran wild! This store was also around the block from Nintendo World, so Lucien got one last game in on Mario Cart 8 when we pass by.