Vacation All I Ever Wanted

We just returned (last week) from our family vacation to Virginia/DC and had such a great time!! We had never been, so we crammed as much into that week as we possibly could.
We started with a couple of days in Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown. We're studying that period of time in history this year, so the kids loved seeing history come to life in the costumes and reenactments of the pre-revolution years.

Next we headed up to a town in northern Virginia near DC to stay with Allen's cousin and his wife. They moved up there about a year ago, and it was great to see them and hang out for a few days. They did a great job tour guiding us around the city. There's SO much to see and do up there, there's no way to hit it all in one vacation, but we saw everything on our list, and made another list in case we ever get to go back!

Something that really struck me while we were there was the beauty and detail of the architecture. The fact that it was all done by hand so perfectly and with such attention amazes me. I read a statement somewhere recently about the irony of the Capitol, our country's symbol of freedom, being built by slaves. Seeing the houses for 'the help', the slave quarters, and the war memorials gave me a renewed respect for the thousands and thousands of people that served our country some by choice, and some not. Their fingerprints are all over that city, and the city is more beautiful because of them.

We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We solemnly publish and declare that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states...and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

-Thomas Jefferson