My Take on Washington DC..

I thought I'd upload a few pictures so you can see Washington DC from my point of view. It really was a great trip - but completely exhausting! Trying to get 50 14-year olds to the right place at the right time is a little bit like herding cats... As long as I could get their attention, between texting the friend next to them, I had half a chance. I think I spent most of the 4 days trying to make sure I hadn't lost one of the 12 kids assigned to me! Here they are sitting in front of the Capital.

The schedule was packed. There wasn't a hour to spare most days between breakfast at 7am and getting back to the hotel at 9pm, but we saw a lot! In fact, since I've never been to DC, I'd love to go back to spend a few days at a more leisurely pace. Because it poured rain one of the days, we had to rearrange our schedule and didn't make it to some of the memorials - The Lincoln Memorial was one I really hoped to see, but we ran out of time. And speaking of rain - this is the way we spent that entire day... Ponchos, anyone?

Teenagers love to shop, that's for sure.. Everyone's first question at every stop was, "Can we go to the gift shop"? You'd think they'd want to see something first! Taylor said it was like Disney World.. Every exhibit leads to a gift shop. I think we hit every one in the DC area! Here is Taylor and a friend next to one of the street vendors where they both bought sweatshirts.

Some of Taylor's friends at the Smithsonian..


And of course, the highlight of the trip for the kids was the trip to the White House. Seeing Marine One land and take off from the White House lawn was amazing (conservative or liberal, it was pretty cool!). This picture shows how close we really were!

I was completely exhausted when we got home, but I would do it again in a heartbeat! What a fun group of kids Taylor has in her class - I've known a lot of them since they were five, and it's been so much fun to watch them grow up. Thank goodness Taylor doesn't mind that I chaperone occasionally! :) What a great kid she is!