Day Two part two

Mt. Vernon, George Washington's home (though he lived there just a fraction of his life) was our afternoon's activity. If you've never been there it's a bucolic yet impressive estate. At its height it included 7,000 acres. Unfortunately for me my charges were rowdy and of short attention span so we only saw the minimum of the estate - the interior of the main house. An amount of time was wasted, too, because the wait for the main house was over 45 minutes.

The rest of the evening looks like food court food and tours of two monuments - maybe Lincoln and Jefferson?

More later!

Day Two - Our first full day

Whew! Almost doen withour first full day of tour. We started the day early, boarding buses at 7:45am. We were off to Arlington National Cemetery.

Most people traveling on their own will take the tram. Students, being of limited budget but unlimited energy, went sans tram and walked first to the tomb of the unknown soldier. There four of our students had the honor of laying a wreath at the tomb. I found out they had won the honor by writing essays and having the essays selected.

Lunch was on our own in Old Town Alexandria. The weather was pleasant and folks scattered fund food, ice cream and souvenirs.

Day One - the fun begins!

No picture today - sorry.

A pretty slow day for us. We got a late start at Richie and Judy's.
After playing with Juliana for a bit and helping Judy where we could
we headed into DC. Checked in to the hotel, realized we were tired and
so grabbed a nap before joining up with the rest of the King's Academy
group. We met up with them at the Union Station food court. Dinner,
window shopping, then back to the hotel (Embassy Suites, Alexandria).
I knew I was back in the saddle when the whole ride back in the bus
was loud off-key singing, including Barney songs.

The blessing was that we are running earlier than stated in the
itinerary. Instead of a 11:15 PM lights out the kids are already in
their rooms (9:35 PM now) and lights out will be 10 PM. Good thing,
too, because we board the buses for a full day starting at 7:45 AM! On
tap are Arlington National Cemetery and Mount Vernon. I see that Mount
Vernon has added an authentic distillery to their campus, but I don't
think we'll be going there.

Oh, and the cherry blossoms are to hit their peak on Sunday! Hope we
can at least drive around the Tidal Basin.

Visiting with pandas

Can you tell where we are? The pandas should be a huge hint if you know our family. Yup, visiting Rich and Judy in the DC area. We spent the night here, arriving a day in advance of Lauren's eighth grade east coast trip.
Judy, Rich and Juliana are all well. We've found Juliana to be a wonderful baby - placid, quiet, and low in the volume category even when she does fuss.
Had a great evening here and a good night's sleep despite having to share a room with two hundred bears.

blogging from my phone

This post coming to you from my phone! Watch this space and excuse the typos!

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Geoff Lee
geoff@gslee.com