Monuments and the White House

I want to begin this post with the Washington Monument. You can see it from anywhere in DC. Its huge but not to terribly exciting. Its right in the middle of the DC national mall. We were going to go up it but the lines were too long so we just walked up to it and took pictures. Its pretty neat to look at since its two different shades of white. It was made of one type of rock before the civil war and another type of rock after the Civil War which makes it pretty neat to look at. Its also made of aluminum at the point on top so it shines at the point.


I probably took too many pictures of this monument but it was a beautiful day and we were just having too much fun!


The WWII memorial in DC is so beautiful! I wish we could have seen it at night but its still pretty beautiful during the day and definitely worth the trip to see it. Their is one pillar for each of the 50 states and two large towers for the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Their is also a wall in the center behind the fountain, with has 4,048 gold stars to represent those Americans who died in WWII. Their are enough stars to represent 1% of the total who died or each star represents 100 people.



We decided to each take a picture next to the pillar with the state that we were born in :)

Mike and my dad were both born in California! (same city actually)


My mom grew up in Rhode Island :)


I was born in Oklahoma....before moving to SC when I was 2


Josh was born and has grown up in South Carolina


Of course Mike also wanted his picture taken next to the New York pillar since that's where he served his mission :)



We also wanted to take a picture with the Idaho pillar since we met at BYU-I and its where we go to school and live. Its home for us...even though we don't always like to admit it.



More pictures for your enjoyment :)





Once we were done looking at this memorial, we continued our journey down the mall to the Vietnam memorial.



We weren't planning on going to the White House while we were in DC. You have to make reservations like 2 months in advance and they need to know everything about you and I really just don't care enough about seeing the White House to go through the trouble (I really don't like guided tours anyway). However, while we were walking back from the Vietnam Memorial to the smithsonian we took a break in the park and Mike looked around and their was the White House (the pretty side too). So he ran up and took a picture and that is the extent of it...its still pretty cool though.



The last monument we went to see was the Iwo Jima monument. I was expecting this little statue....it is HUGE!!!! This statue is so cool! The detail put into it is incredible. It looks so lifelike.