Washington DC!

Never have I been in a place that was so rich in history, and beauty, and significance to my life than last week. My sister and her family live just outside Washington DC and a couple months ago she highlighted a plane fare sale and strongly encouraged us to take advantage of the free time that we have on our hands and come and visit. So after much deliberation (probably a few more seconds than was necessary) we bought our tickets and worked towards preparing for an awesome week. Little did we realize, it was nothing that we could have expected!

Our First day we went to Mt Vernon - and I don't know what I expected to see or find, but my sister has a Season Pass if that gives you an idea of how cool it was. The expansive estate was impressive - yes. The mansion and the dozen+ out buildings were impressive - yes. But the thing that was the most enlightening about the experience was the insight that we got into the man George Washington. Besides being The military man he was innovative, creative, brilliant, business smart, hard working, an amazing leader, and we also saw proof that he was a loving and compassionate person. Oh, and he was really rich too. His estate was not only totally and entirely self sufficient, he was so efficient, that he sold his products all throughout the colonies.

We took the "National Treasure 2" tour - and saw a couple of the iconic things that were shown in the movie. The coolest of which was the basement of the mansion. We saw the replica of the cornerstone and the vaults that were shown in the movie. The actual cornerstone is now in the museum.
This is where we ate lunch that day. In a forested area next to the parking lot. Beautiful place.