Falls Church, Virginia (just outside Washington DC)

We arrived here on Monday afternoon, Nov 3rd - the day before the Presidential Election. Most of Monday evening and Tuesday day was about settling in for what will be a longish stay here with Denise's sister in Falls Church - moving things out of the van and into the bedrooms we'd been given. However, the main event for all of us was the Nov 4th Election. Shortly after dinner we sat glued to the television watching the results come in and witnessing Americans young and old, from all parts of the country, call for real change. We celebrated greatly at 11pm (Eastern time) when Barack Obama was announced as winner. At only 9, Rose was caught up in the excitement of this special evening and stayed up with us to experience and celebrate the historic event. While we "champagned" she "apple-cidered" in a rousing cheer for our new President-Elect. It's amazing to think that if Obama stays in for two terms as President, Rose will be 17 when he leaves office. The remainder of the week has provided ample opportunity to visit Washington DC and we've spent a good few hours visiting the incredible monuments and museums of the nations capital. We have more trips planned including tours of the White House, the Capitol and the Library of Congress as well as a desire to see more of the awesome Smithsonian museums. The other day as we walked from the Abraham Lincoln Memorial past the Vietnam Veterans and World War II memorials to the Washington monument the girls were tickled to finally be seeing in person some of the sights made familiar to them in text books and television, such as the White House and the Capitol. We managed to get to the top of the Washington monument and enjoyed an excellent birds eye view across Washington DC (or, as we from Washington State like to say, "the other Washington"). We were especially delighted to be visiting while the weather has been above 60 F. Today it even hovered around 70 F, bright and sunny. Wonderful. We have more exploring to do and, fortunately, a good amount of time to do it.