A Day in the District

I had a little break from school last week, and Rosa took Wednesday off of work just so we could spend a day together. We decided to take a little day trip to Washington, just two hours to the north of our home. Our first stop was a visit to the LDS temple in nearby Kensington, MD. It's one of the largest temples in the world, and it's absolutely breathtaking. It was, as always, a refreshing couple of hours we spent there. So good! (except for my crooked tie in this picture)

We grabbed a quick bite in nearby Silver Spring, where Rosa discovered... a JAMBA JUICE. After chocolate, Jamba Juice ranks as Rosa's number two biggest addiction. She's basically obsessed. And surprise surprise, we found that Silver Springs also has one of my favorite places from California: Baja Fresh. Yum.

Since we've both done the DC tourist thing a few times, we decided to try to find something we hadn't done before. Rosa went online and found a place we had both never been: the International Spy Museum! So cool! I've always wanted to be a spy, so of course this was the perfect place for me. Actually, maybe I already AM a spy! Just kidding. Or am I?

So we got there and it was CLOSED. What?!! We had checked online and the website advertises in multiple places that the museum closes at 8pm. We got there a couple minutes after 6pm. Yes, two hours before closing time. But some bus full of teenagers informed us that it had just closed a couple minutes earlier. So after we spied the hours on the door, apparently "Hours Vary By Season." SO HELPFUL!! And of course it would be very hard to put the hours of the different seasons. Or a sharpie-handwritten 8.5" x 11" explaining the current hours. Or seventeen seconds updating the so-called "website."

Oh well. We cut our losses and decided to make an evening of it. We headed over to check out Ford's Theatre, the famous theatre where Abraham Lincoln was shot. We knew ahead of time that the theatre is closed these days, so it wasn't quite such a shock when we saw the closed sign out front. But did you know they're still using it as a theatre? It hasn't been continuously open since 1865, but it has been running again since like the 80's. They're doing A Christmas Carol there this December for example.

After walking around and seeing a few more sites, we visited la Casa Blanca. I don't think W was there, but if he were, I know he would've hung out with us. Even though we were a couple acres away and in front of the big bars. And there are probably fifty snipers between us and the mansion. Okay, so maybe he wouldn't have hung out with us, but he'd be pleased to know that we're still among the 3% of Americans that approve of the job he's doing. Except for Guantanamo. That's just messed up.

We ended the night doing cool camera tricks. And by "cool," I mean a 7th grader would want us to be in their cool club after seeing these pictures.

Even though we were fooled by the tricky spy museum, it still turned out to be a really fun day.