Our final trip on our vacation was to Philadelphia. We went to independence hall, saw the liberty bell, Franklin's printing shop, and the first post office, which is still functioning. It was really neat to stand in Independence Hall. You could actually feel the spirit in there witnessing that the Declaration of Independence was divinely inspired.

That pretty much wraps up our trip. I'll post some family photos I took next time. Now onto what has been happening around the house. Rachael had her prom this past weekend. It was the Priest/Laurel Formal on Saturday. She was suppose to go with Jovence Vital, but he ended up having to work, so she called up Dante Clark and they went together. Dante had asked her to the Mormon Prom, but she had already told Jovence she would go with him. I haven't downloaded my camera yet, so I will post photos later.

Also, Rachael got her driver's license today. We tried to get it last week, but every time we went, the computers were down. Stan took her today and they finally had success. She drove herself to dance this afternoon. I haven't gotten a call from her, so I am assuming she got there ok. I'm not as nervous about her driving as I was in the beginning. Teaching a child to drive is a very nerve racking process. She has turned into a pretty good driver. She is very cautious when she drives. She never speeds, although sometimes she is guilty of going too slow. It is kind of nice not having to take her to dance. I will still need to driver her out to St. Stephen's next week for tech week for their dance show as she has never driven there and she doesn't think she can find it on her own. I don't want her getting lost. I drive with her on the first day and hope she can find it after than because I have a schedule conflict on Tuesday and won't be able to get her to tech. I may have to find a ride for her if she doesn't think she can find it alone. That is my biggest fear with her driving is her getting lost. She isn't very good with directions and knowing where she is going. She can easily get herself to and from dance going multiple different directions, but that is pretty much it. I know it will get better as she starts driving more.

Days 4 and 5

I didn't forget to finish our vacation post, but things just got a little busy. I'm trying to get the boys room painted so Stan can get the new floor installed. I have about 1/4 of the room done and lots more to do.

So, day 3 and 4 were spent in Washington DC. My biggest regret was that I completely forgot that a high school friend of mine lived in DC. I'm sorry Michelle. I wish I would have contacted her prior to going so she could have met up with us there. We had a great time. We got there about 1 or 2 pm and walked around the monuments. We saw the WW II, Vietnam, Korea war monuments, the Lincoln memorial, the Washington monument and the Jefferson memorial. It was a lot of walking and I was really worried about it. I really only had trouble with the last leg of the trip when my bad leg started spasming and it became difficult to walk. I was actually pretty proud of myself for being able to push through the walking.

We stayed the night in a hotel in the Washington area, in Virginia actually. We decided we wanted to go to the Aerospace museum that was in Virginia since it held the shuttle. Stan really wanted to see the shuttle. It was about 30 minutes into Virginia but it turned out to be a good choice. My parents said the Virginia museum was way better than the DC one. We drove back into DC and went to the aquarium. That was a waste of time and money. We have way better aquariums here in Texas. Next, we went to the Natural History museum. That was pretty cool. I was so tired after those 2 days of walking every where. We got home at about 10pm that night and crashed pretty much right away.