a museum, a capital, and a ball game

over memorial day weekend, my sil-s and i drove out to washington, d.c. to meet up with my bro-m to visit our nation’s capital. you can read about our drive to d.c. here, our first day of visiting here, and some nighttime walking here.

saturday morning’s events turned into saturday afternoon’s events. we were pacing on getting to the national mall around 10 am but didn’t actually get there until about 1145 am. oops.

our first stop was the smithsonian museum of american history where we met up with my bil-j.

in 1996 when i first visited washington, d.c. and the american history museum, the flag, made by betsy ross, was hanging out in the open so that as soon as you walked in it was right there. but because of its deterioration it is now encased behind this wall as its own exhibit. it really is quite interesting reading about its history.

on to the next exhibit!

bil-j looked up the american history museum and saw that they housed these red shoes from the wizard of oz and that was all he wanted to see.  we ended up running late and bil-j walked into the natural history museum looking all around for these shoes.  so when we finally got to the american history museum he was so excited to finally see what he’d been wanting to see.  it was quite funny.  so while he was reading the excerpt i just HAD to take a picture of him by the shoes.

each of these photos are from three different exhibits.
top:  FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000  the reason i took this picture is because it has MONTEREY PARK on it!!!
bottom left: The Price of Freedom: Americans at War i took this photo because it reminded me of an episode of Doctor Who.
bottom right: American Stories  generations of music players

when i went out to D.C. with my eighth grade class we had to memorize the Gettysburg address and recite it when we visited Gettysburg.  i haven’t thought about those words since then and when i was standing at this wall reading those words it meant so much more to me now than it ever did.

another photo from the FOOD exhibit.  old 7-up cups!

(photo by sil-s)

we walked around looking for food trucks and they just happened to be right in front of the capitol.  love this shot of the capitol!

we ate lunch on the lawn in front of the capitol.  after finishing i laid back and took this shot.  when i reviewed it i didn’t see the sun’s rays and thought it was a bust.  but hours and hours later i saw that it came out EXACTLY how i had wanted it.  i even got a bird!!!

later that night we went to a nationals game.  bro-m got us some great seats!!

a little collage. top-bottom, left-right: walking to the stadium from the metro, at the front gates, proof i was inside the park =), the presidential race – lincoln won!, view from our seats, sweet mobile ordering instructions – the things technology can do these days!

top-bottom, left-right: love this shot with the field in the background, nationals marquee – nationals lost =(, street light decor, helmet head trash can topper.

one of the three of us!!!

(photo by sil-s)

another shot of the empty field.  love it!

we had a great time walking around the national mall and watching the nationals play ball. it was a pretty packed day but definitely worth all the walking we did. seeing the flag again was absolutely amazing. going to see all this history, now that i’m older, makes me appreciate it so much more. however, i don’t think that i would be able to appreciate quite as much if i hadn’t gone when i was younger. so a huge thanks to my mom and dad for sending me when i was younger.

edited with instagram, photogrid, and pixlr-express