I woke up Sunday morning and got my camera out and took a few shots of the scenery right outside our windows. You could see the Washington Monument on one side. The one thing I truely enjoyed was that the city was centered around so many trees. They knew how to build a city without cutting down all the trees or they planted them. That was so impressive to me! I absolutely loved the scenery!
I thought these two pictures were really neat because I caught my own image in the pictures along with the scenery! How cool is that!
I had so many firsts on this trip that I wasn't sure if I could handle it all at one time:)!! This was my very first time on any Metro. Not that it's looks are impressive at all, but just the fact I had never been on one gives reason to take a picture! The guys were really gracious about all my picture taking too! I was grateful for that:)!
This was the first I saw of the Cherry Blossoms! WOW! That is all I can say about those. They were so gorgeous! The first 3 pics are of that, but have the Capitol in the background. After that I have a ton of pictures of the Capitol and added all the Cherry Blossoms I could to the scenery of the Capitol. I loved seeing the Capitol. It was really amazing! We didn't get to tour it this day because it was closed on Sundays, but we got to later on.
This was the photographer that was hired to follow us around the whole trip. The guys weren't too happy with him by mid-day, but I am sure we will all appreciate his work later. We should recieve his pictures in a few weeks.
Here is a view of the Washington Monument from the Capitol steps! I thought it was just gorgeous! The day was perfect for all these pictures too!
While we were walking between the Monument and the Capitol I got a couple back shots of the whole gang! From the left is Cooper from North Carolina (SrA), Courtney n Heath Temple from Alaska(TSgt), in between them and the next person is our AFA (Air Force Association) Rep. Shane, our guide is not seen but he is right beside Shane whom is called "Scoop" by everyone but his name is (SMSgt) Cob, then there is Jazmine from Utah (also a SrA), she brought her supervisor because they told her she had to have a baby-sitter:) his name is (SSgt) Wilham, after him is Gus from Germany (SMSgt), and on the right hand corner you can see Phillip's sleeve, but you can see him in the second picture!
This was the Reflection Pool behind the Capitol along with some statues. It was gorgeous. Way more to the scenery than what I could get into a picture, but at least this gives me memories!
After the Capitol and Monument walking around we did they took us to the Air and Space Smithsonian. My Dad would absolutely just love this place. I'm not sure we would ever get him out of there actually:)!! It was full of plane models, astronaut stuff, and so many other interesting things.
Now this was the first motorcycle that was made. It went 135mph. It used an airplane engine and that's how they tested the first airplane engines. Quite impressive I thought!
All plane models.
This caught my attention because of the bike and plane put together. It was very interesting!
Here is an idea of something that could possibly fly.
If I am not mistaking this was just an idea as well or model of an idea of how to make something fly. I thought it looked so awesome I had to have the picture. This was my favorite thing in the Smithsonian.
This was a neat looking shuttle, but couldn't get any other shots of it because there was too many people around it.
These represent the planets and I thought they looked neat because they were so large. I was glad a kid was there to show how big they were, but still in real life they were way bigger than the picture shows of course.
Here's a robot they took to Mars.
This is the first non-stop plane that flew over the Atlantic. I thought that was cool!
This is all astronaunt stuff inside the Smithsonian.
The next thing we toured was the Museum of Art. I honestly thought this was boring! It wasn't bad just wasn't the funnest thing we did in my opinion. All the pictures were beautiful, but that was it! The picture of us together is actually inside the museum. That scenery was really nice to me!
This is the National Archives. We didn't go inside, but I liked all the architech so I took pictures of everything!
Right outside the National Archives was this HUGE metal spider built right in the middle of the Botanical Garden. We had lunch close by and when we walked by this spider I was blown away. It had to be anywhere from 8-10ft tall. It was really cool! And if you look close there is a bird's nest right in one of the legs of the spider. I thought that was neato!!
This is the House of Treasury. It is practically right beside the White House.
We were not able to visit or tour the White House, but we got close enough to get a couple pictures. Boy was it amazing to even be that close to it! I told everyone it looked like Phillip and me were photo-shopped in with the White House:)!! I still like these pictures though!
The Vietnam Memorial was chilling to me. You start at one end and it is shorter than your foot, but as you walk towards the middle it grows as much as 8ft or so according to Phillip. Each name has a diamond at the front of it or a cross sign or they might have a diamond with a cross in it. The diamond means they were found. The cross means they were MIA. And both means they were MIA at one time, but were found later after the war. Isn't that interesting! We overheard another guide saying all this.
This was the end of our touring for Sunday. This is the best shot I could get of the Lincoln Memorial. We did not get very close so I did my best and still wanted to show it off!
After all the touring we had about a half an hour break to decompress in our rooms before we had to meet the driver to take all of us to Chief McKinley's house on Andrew AFB for a "Social" he puts together every year for the award recipiants. Chefs fight for the opportunity to cook for this dinner and then whomever is chosen, which is more than one, has this competition going on while they cook to see who can make the best food! Well, I'll tell ya it was all just absolutely delicious and the setup was incredible. They actually decorated everything with training munitions or bombs. It looked great. Those that did not come from EOD that were there thought it was the oddest decor, but we all loved it! All the guys went around telling others what each thing was. That dinner was one of my favorite outtings of the trip.
Monday morning we had a tour of the Pentagon. We were there most of the day practically. They even had lunch for us in the Pentagon. We were allowed to tour parts of the Pentagon that is not open to the public so it was very interesting to say the least!
Finally we were given a 2-3hour break between the Pentagon and the ceremony being held that night in order to dress in formal business atire. We went back to our rooms and I realized that the outside view of our window was different than when I took pictures before so I got another picture of the Washington Monument. Isn't it just beautiful!
Okay I have to say I was so impressed with the mac/cheese deal they were doing in the back at the Ceremony that was held for the 5-EOD techs being awarded. It was so impressive. They had every topping you could imagine and they cooked it right there for ya and poured it into a martini glass. Boy was it fancy! The taste and flavor was out of this world!! It was fantastic!
After the General took our mac/cheese pic he passed the camera over and took a shot with us and then told that General to pass it over again and made that General come up and take a shot with us. The last guy to recieve our camera was also a General, he was the 2-star Chaplain, which we had met the night before at the Social. We really liked him and his wife a lot. They are A/G which was so unbelievable. You do not hear of an actual A/G chaplain in the military that often. Anyway, we ended up having 3 Generals at our attention all at once because of some mac/cheese!!
Phillip just recieved his award for "Team of the Year" here. Then I got a good shot of all 5 recipients together. All 5 were really great individuals and their families and guests were a blast! We all got along so well.
At the end of the evening I asked Col. Welch, Phillip's Commander at Tyndall in Panama City whom flew in just for the ceremony and flew out the very next day, if he would take pic. with Phillip. Then someone grabbed my camera from me and told me to join them!
On Tuesday I took pictures of everyone while we were sitting around in the lobby waiting to leave for our first tour of the day. The only one missing is Gus which is the guy from Germany. The schedule was changed verbally, not on paper, so he didn't hear it the night before. It was no biggy though. He came right down when he was called.
Starting on the left is Jazmine's supervisor Wilham (never did get his first name I don't think), Scoop our guide, Shane our AFA (Air Force Association) guide, and another AFA representative. We really didn't get to know the other AFA rep. She was only there for the one tour to the Capitol to help take us to our different Congressmen's offices. That didn't go so well. Our individual congressmen were not there since it was recess week. The staff was not that interested in us. The rest of the trip was really great though.
This is Jazmine standing and talking. You can see Heath in the back corner. I didn't get a good shot of him in this setting for some reason.
In this picture you can see Heath and Courtney, then Chief Hodges and his wife Margaret. The Chief is the "big guy" for the EOD career field. He and his wife are really nice. We enjoyed their company.
Here I got one of the other wives to take a shot of us while the metro was behind us. You can't see it too well, but I know it's there! This was an experience to say the least!
Our first tour of the day was at the Arlington Cemetary. The guys found 3-EOD guys that are there and we went and looked at each grave. On each one of the graves the guys laid an EOD badge from thier blue shirts (since they are invisable with their jackets/blue blouses on). It was very touching to watch!
I had to take pictures of the chocolates that were made to look just like the dome on the top of the Capitol and chocolates made to look like the Washington Monument! We recieved these as part of our gifts from a luncheon that was put together at the Capitol Club Hotel. O that meal was absolutely wonderful and so fancy. The 4-star General Eulburg was the speaker and he did an excellent job, very funny too:)!!
This is the last thing Phillip and I did right before we flew out of D.C. on Wednesday afternoon. Phillip got us a cab and took me down to the Jefferson Memorial to see the Cherry Blossoms. I wanted to go the whole week we were there, but we never had the time to do it. I was so grateful and pleased that Phillip took me! It was absolutely beautiful!
Here are some of the ducks in the water that I thought Meme would like to see. I also like the one where the Cherry Blossoms look like they were kissing the water!
I took this picture of the ground because I wanted to show how much the wind had blown. It had blown so hard that it blew off most of the cherry blossoms so the trees were not fully bloomed. I can't imagine how gorgeous they looked before the wind got a hold of them!
And this was the Jefferson Memorial. It was impressive!
We flew out of D.C. Wednesday afternoon and were home that evening. The flight wasn't too bad. I was NOT ready to be home, but couldn't wait to see my babies (the pups)!
This trip was a very memorable adventure for both of us and we were so honored that the military did this for us. I myself am more proud of Phillip than he will ever imagine:)!!
Great pictures! There are some really good ones of you and Philip! I loved going to DC and seeing all the historical things!! Can't wait to see you in a few weeks!!
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