DC and New York

So it took a while to get back in the swing of things around here, but here are some pictures of our trip. For those who don't know Devon and I had the opportunity to take a group of 6 high school students to DC and New York for a week in March. My mom watched our boys which was so great. We had a wonderful time. Both of us had been to DC before, but we saw a lot of new things. I especially enjoyed the tours of the buildings (like the White house, the Capitol and the Library of Congress). The weather was lovely for the DC part of our trip. We stayed with Devon's aunt and uncle near DC- it was nice to see them too. Our favorite part of DC was the Holocaust Museum. It was sad, but also inspiring. At the end it showed how in countries where people stood up and helped the Jews the survival rate was much more. It made me think it is important to not just sit by and say you can't do anything about the bad things happening.
With all of the students we had literally thousands of pictures, so here are a few.
Devon at the art museum in DC. Not as big as the MET (where we spent 2 hours just on the 1st floor) but still good.

The botanical gardens. These were really pretty, I'm glad we squeezed them in.
This is the painting in the dome of the Capitol Building- it is George Washington being taken up to heaven. These are the cool things you learn when you get to take a tour.
The moon was super bright, so this was a pretty cool picture.
In the Museum of American history. I think this is my favorite of the Smithsonian Museums.
Devon and I by the Capitol. We were on our way to Tortilla Cafe, a restaurant that we went to that was on Triple D (if you watch the Food Network, you know what I mean). It was good- but super crowded.
We also got to spend a few days in New York. The first day was freezing rain- we also got lost on the subway for a few hours, but many adventures later we made it to Ellis Island the the Statue of Liberty.
The high school kids thought I was crazy to leave my poncho on the the picture, but it was part of the adventure- and it was too cold to take it off.
This was our other favorite part. We go to go see Phantom on Broadway. It was amazing!
This is the view from the top of the Empire State building. That's a lot of buildings. Definitely a change from Monument Valley
We actually ate more hot dogs from street vendors in DC than in New York, but you just have to eat one in New York. Also, the pizza here was amazing. Lots of restaurants don't have tables, people just stand at a counter and eat- no time to sit down anyway.
Central Park. It is beautiful, and huge, and right in the middle of all of these huge buildings. there were lots of people playing instruments, and they were even filming a movie while we were there.
It was a great trip. Driving was not as bad as I expected it to be- we didn't actually drive in New York- that would have been crazy. We packed things in and got up early and came back late, but it was a lot of fun, and I saw lots of new and amazing things!