Wii loved D.C.

Our trip was fantastic! We drove through the night to get there, which wasn't actually that great, but it was ok I guess. Interesting, and difficult, but it saved us a lot of time which meant we could visit Matt and Laura longer. So we got there on Saturday and basically just went out to eat, which was fun until some stupid basketball game came on which everybody in the place was apparantly excited for, luckily we were pretty much done at that point because the continuous clapping was annoying. The next day we did a lot more touristy stuff-ate at a fancy restaurant for Restaurant week, which basically meant we had a really expensive lunch for really cheap. Good thing too, because some of the food was weird. Or gross, in the case of falafel and yogurt juice (2 separate dishes). Oh, and we went to church in Virginia which was pretty interesting, tiny though, but ok I guess. Anyway, we also went to the National Portrait Gallery and saw some cool things, most notably an exibit on Katherine Hepburn, the Stephen Colbert portrait (which was the only thing there that had a line waiting to see it), and the Hall of Presidents. It was really interesting to see all the presidents, especially the older ones, and to realize that they were actually real people with real personalities. It's hard to think about that sometimes when you read about history and the things that happened when certain people were president. I mean, some of them you're used to seeing, like George Washington or Abe Lincoln or JFK or the more recent ones. But most of them you don't really have any clue who they were, and seeing their pictures actually gives you some idea. At least I think so. In fact, you could almost tell by looking at them what kind of person they really were, or why they were elected, like war heroes or charming personalities or whatnot. Puts a new perspective on things, that's for sure.

The next day we all went to the Mall and saw the Washington Monument, and the White House (very impressive by the way, even though we couldn't go in), and then we went to the Museum of Natural History. That was really cool too-there are a gazillion stuffed animales (not toys, like actual animals that were dead or killed probably and then stuffed) and the Hope Diamond and some other really pretty gems, and we also went and saw Lions 3D. After all that we went and ate at Ben's Chili Bowl. Yum. We had a ton of good food on our trip. Like 5 Guys later on that week, and Matt made fajitas (his specialty). Eric and I also went and saw the rest of the monuments on the Mall on Wednesday and Thursday when Matt and Laura was at work, as well as the Holocaust museum, the Air and Space museum (including the exhibit Treasures of American History-more about that below), the Archives whatnot (like the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights), and the Spy museum, which was really fun. Interactive too, which made it really enjoyable.We also went to the Zoo with Matt, but unfortunately didn't get to see too much because the buildings all closed at 4:30, not 5 like we thought. We did get to see pandas though, and a hippo, and some other stuff. The only thing we didn't see that we were disappointed about was the sloth bear. Is it a bear, or is it a sloth? We'll never know.

The only other thing on our trip that we were disappointed about, and only slightly, was the Treasures of American History exhibit. It's about 150 really cool historical things, from George Washington's uniform and Abe Lincoln's hat to Prince's guitar and Dorothy's ruby slippers. And Kermit the Frog and R2-D2 and C-3P0. Unfortunately, Oprah was borrowing a couple of items, including Rocky Balboa's gloves and the RUBY SLIPPERS so she could show them on her show. Lame! We were seriously unhappy. Luckily for me, I've already seen the ruby slippers (and Kermit) when they were on tour a while back (I was in elementary school, and it was a field trip) but I wanted to see them again and Eric didn't get a chance to see them at all. So we were not happy about that. Stupid Oprah. That's right, I just called Oprah stupid. It's not like she's the pope or anything. Or hey, even the president. I could see the President borrowing treasures of American history before I can see Oprah doing it.

When we were not eating at cool restaurants or seeing cool monuments or visiting cool museums, we hung out at Matt and Laura's and played games and watched the rest of Firefly. Then once we were done with that, Matt bought Serenity so that whole storyline got wrapped up for us really well. Also, we played Wii bowling. A lot. It was really fun. In fact, at one point I played Wii bowling all by myself. That's right, I'm a loser. More like, they were playing a game I really didn't want to play so I amused myself for awhile with the Wii. Which led me to "discover" Wii tennis. I never though I would like any other game besides the bowling, but the tennis is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that on the night before Eric and I left we played for over an hour with Matt and Laura. Mostly until I was finally on a winning team. That's right-despite the fact that I played a ton of Wii bowling and some Wii tennis, I still suck at both of them. Although I did play enough bowling to make it to pro on their Wii. I even have my own character, so that's very exciting.

All in all, it was a really good trip. It was fun to see our nation's capital, and to visit Matt and Laura who we really don't get to see that much. We had a really good time visiting with them and we're really happy we went. Even though it was an insanely long drive. It was definitely worth it.

It's surrounded by guards... video monitors... and little families from Iowa... and little kids on their eighth grade field trips.