A few weeks go, my little brother, Matthew, called to tell me that he was coming to Philadelphia on a business trip, and wondered if I would be free to get together.  I was so excited – and miraculously, my entire weekend was free, even though it was December.  Because of this, Matthew flew in early Saturday morning into DC, where I picked him up, and then stayed the weekend with us, with me taking him to Philly on Monday.  

I was so excited for him to come!  I love spending time with my little brother, and he was going to be our very first guest in our new house.  I love having people come to visit!  And to make everything better, Kevin was nice enough to stay home with the kids on Saturday, and so I got to play in Washington DC without the kids (especially the three year old that would have been miserable).

And so, on Saturday morning, I headed to Dulles to pick Matthew up from his redeye flight from Nevada.  The airport is only thirty minutes from the National Mall, and so before we knew it, we were in the midst of all the amazingness that is DC.  It was Matthew’s very first time there, and so I let him pick whatever he wanted to do.  He had a lot on his list, but we made it happen.

We started things off with the National Air and Space Museum, because you can’t go to DC without going to at least one of the Smithsonian museums :).  We made it through remarkably fast – it really is amazing how much faster you can tour without children in tow.

After the museum, we headed to the Capitol Building.  Not only was it looking especially beautiful, because for the first time in years, it wasn’t covered in scaffolding, but the National Christmas tree was out front.  It came from Idaho this year, which was especially fun, and it made our visit even more special.

And it was super fun to get to share the whole experience with my brother.  (I must mention, however, that it was absolutely freezing outside.  Bone-chilling cold, with a cold wind on top of it.  Another reason I was grateful that the kids weren’t with us, as they would have been miserable.  Matthew and I managed to walk pretty fast, which helped keep us warmer, but I sure was missing my hat.

The Capitol building was amazingly impressive up close.  I had never come this close to it before, and it was spectacular – especially on the back side where you can really tell just how massive it is.  I loved getting to see it and take pictures of it, and was once again super grateful that the scaffolding was gone.

Matthew really wanted to take the tour, but the only way to get tickets, other than a standby line, is to write your congressmen for them (and you can only get two tickets total.  Luckily, because it was a cold random Saturday in December, the crowds in DC were extremely light, and so we got right into a tour.  (The security was much more intense there, and they had their own police officers, which all made sense.  And they warned us to never get separated from our group, or we could get arrested.  Crazy!)

The entire building was amazingly beautiful, with fantastic details everywhere, including the two statues for each State in the union.  They were all over the building, but some of the best ones, were in the Rotunda.

The Rotunda was so beautiful – and so big.  It is hard to tell just how giant it really is, but just to give you a clue, our tour guide said that the mural in the center of the dome was as large as two full court basketball courts.  But just look at those beautiful details and art.  Amazing!

While we were in the middle of our tour of the Capitol, we realized that our parking meter was about to run out.  We didn’t want to leave our tour, but somehow we got the longwinded tour guide, who managed to turn a 45 minute tour into 1 1/2 hours (and was still going), and so when a young family asked if they could leave, we joined them and left.  And then we ran as fast as we could back to the car.  Matthew was faster (partly because he is faster, and partly because he wasn’t carrying a heavy camera), and so I sent him on ahead to feed the meter.  

Luckily, we were good, and so we took a break for lunch.  We were going to go into the restaurant at the American Indian Museum, but saw the food trucks outside, and decided that eating a Gyro on the sidewalk sounded perfect.  And it was delicious, and not just because we were both starving :).

After lunch, we stopped inside the American Indian Museum, were Matthew bought some gorgeous earrings for my sister-in-law, Susan.  (She definitely deserved a great gift, having to stay behind with their five kids, while he got to play.)  And then we fed the meter again, and headed off on our hike to the monuments – and it is quite a hike.  You really don’t realize how far apart everything is, until you are walking it.  It is worth it though.  

The Washington Monument is so amazing, and although the inside was closed for refurbishment, it’s so awesome to see.  And as you walk past it, you look to your right, and you can see the White House.  So cool!

Just on the other side of the Washington Monument, is the WWII memorial, which is so amazing.

The wall of stars with the sign, “Here We Mark the Price of Freedom,” was my favorite part of the memorial, but the whole thing was beautiful and awe inspiring.

And like it had a beautiful view of the Washington Monument on one side, there was the Lincoln Memorial on the other side.  It was also our next stop on our monument hike.

Even though we were so cold and so tired from all the walking, it was worth it all to get to the Lincoln Monument.  It is amazing!  It such a wonderful tribute to such an amazing man.

As I read his words carved into the marble walls, and looked up at his face, I couldn’t help but be grateful that this great man was in the right place at the right time to save our country.

And from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking back out over the National Mall, it is a breathtaking view.  The Capitol Building peaking out behind the Washington Monument – so beautiful.

After we finished up there, we were racing the clock to get all the way back to the car to, once again, beat the meter.  But even though we were in a huge hurry, we still stopped along the way when we found more memorials.  The Korean War memorial was beautiful and surprising.  I had not realized how many American lives were lost.  The stone says, “Our Nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.”  The quote says it all.

As we made our way along, we also stumbled upon this beautiful little monument to recognize the locals that died in both World Wars.

We finally got back to the car, and then we went on a wonderful wild goose chase looking for Sprinkles Cupcakes – something I had always wanted to try.  Well, unfortunately, the traffic had gotten really bad by then, and so it took a while, and then there was no where to park at all.  The shop was in this quaint and expensive DC neighborhood, and so I dropped my brother off, and I just drove around the block until he had the cupcakes, and then he ran to the car while I was at a stop sign.

After the cupcake adventure (which we didn’t eat right then, because we were saving them to take home), we went to the Washington DC Temple, so that Matthew could see it.  It was right at dusk, and and so the Christmas lights were lit, and the temple was magnificent.  Matthew had never seen the DC Temple before, and it blew him away.  (It was so pretty!!) 

Of course, we had to get a picture together with the temple, and then send it to our family, like we had been doing all day :).

We walked around a little while, and I showed Matthew the wonderful visitor there.  And I was able to get the coolest picture, of the temple with the reflection of the Christus in the window.

Because of the time of the evening we were there, the lighting was perfect for taking pictures of the temple and the lights.  This was one of my favorite shots of the night.

After the temple, we were starving, and Matthew found a great pizza place just around the corner, called Frankly Pizza.  It was so yummy, but we ended up having to eat it on the road, because as we were waiting for our food, Kevin texted to let me know that the Army vs. Navy football game was about to let out, and the traffic in the area was about to increase exponentially.  Needless to say, we got our pizza to go, and headed out.

We got home around bedtime for the kids, so they got to see their uncle Matthew for a few minutes before they went to sleep.  They were so excited to have him visit!!  (Derek was just really sad that he didn’t bring his cousin, Peter, with him.)  After the kids were all in bed, we broke out the cupcakes.  They were all so yummy, but the surprise of the night was that the strawberry cupcake was the winner – so amazing!!!  And yes, we cut them into thirds, so Kevin, Matthew and I could each have a piece of each of them.  Yum!

As we were sitting there talking, Matthew and I couldn’t get over how worn out we were.  It was then that I looked at my fitbit app.  We had walked over 20,000 steps and nine miles – I took this screen shot before dinner.  Matthew had to send it to Susan to show her how much we walked :).  Not sure we could have done the same with our little kids with us ;).

It was such a fantastic day, and I am so glad to share it with my little brother.  I still can’t believe all we squeezed into one day.  So much fun, and it was only the first half of our adventure.