Anniversary Trip

Our Trip to DC and Maryland was incredible. We had amazing weather, inspiring sight seeing, and lots of fun with old/new friends. We started off by heading out early Friday morning. Our apartment complex was having a resident appreciation day, and handed us breakfast on our way out. We drove for a little over six hours and made it to the DC temple. It was really grande and beautiful, but kind of sad that we were one of two couples in our session. We then drove for 1 hour to go 9 miles to our hotel. A more experienced DC driver could have made it there quicker, but we were sticking to our mapquested roads. Our hotel was really nice, about 2 miles from the white house.
That night we met up with one of Mike's old friends and ate dinner, and then we went to see the monuments. It was a surreal feeling being in the Nations Capitol and seeing all the sights that you see so many times on TV and in the movies. One interesting part of our visit was all the motorcyclists. They had a big convention that weekend, and so everywhere we went there were gaggles of bikers. I think that our favorite monument in the national mall was the WWII monument. We then headed back to the metro station to take us to our hotel, but it was closed. So we debated about what to do. We thought we would try to hail a taxi, but by the time we walked to a place where we could see taxis driving by, we were a block a way from the nearest Metro, that was luckily open.
We woke up the next morning and ate the free breakfast at our hotel that we got from booking with orbitz. It ended up beeing just a lot of bread and fruit, but still pretty good. We met up with Mike's friend again, who works for one of the Idaho senators. He gave us a private tour of the capitol which was really neat. The main atrium was breath taking. It was intricate and ornate. The ceiling is beautiful, and filled with meaning. Mike's friend was also able to tell us some of the interesting stories about the capitol. For example, in one of the pictures of the signing of the declaration of independece, it looks like Thomas Jefferson is stepping on John Adam's foot. The legend goes that Jefferson paid the painter to paint it that way, since he and Adams were currently in a fued.
After the capitol we went to the White House and then to the Arlington Cemetary. The cemetary was a really neat experience. They had the flags out in front of all the graves for Memorial Day. We both felt a lot of appreciation for our country, and those men who died for our country, as we walked around the cemetary. There was one moment during a wreath ceremony at the tomb of the unkown soldier where they had a trumpeter play taps. It was the one moment that all the distractions of the thousands of people who were there was taken away. It was an inspiring moment.
We took off after all of that to go to Severna Park Maryland, Amy's first, favorite, and area she served in the longest. We stayed at one of the member's houses from that area named the Thompsons. They were incredibly nice. For dinner we ate just about everything under the sun and then some. The next morning we went to the Severna Park ward where about 70 members meet. It was really fun for Amy to see so many of her old friends, and Fun for Mike to meet all these people she has talked about. After church we headed to the Sheelys house in Elkridge Maryland. We stayed up talking about Food Science, Sister Sheeleys Conversion Story and Special Education. Needless to say that they were very nice and accommodating.
After a long wonderful trip we made two last stops on our way back home. We first stopped by to see the Guytons, a really fun member family from the same area. It was really exciting to see them. Then we went to the Milliron's house. Brother Milliron was just baptized as Amy went in to their area in Mt Airy. They were super nice and fed us lunch. 6 hours later we were back into good old Columbus Ohio. What a trip!!!