More from D.C.

Well yesterday we spent a day at a local stake conference here. It reminded me of what it is like to live in areas where every other person isn't Mormon. It made me a little nostalgic for the time we lived in Oregon. I also realize the church is the same everywhere and that is a huge blessing. We also went to the national cathedral. It is SO ornate. It was only finished building in 1990 which surprised me. I know the Salt Lake and some other early temple took longer but today we have temples covering the globe and I am pretty sure most of them have funding plans before they are built. There was a sculpture on the front that depicted spirits being created out of nothingness and chaos (which was a whirlpool sort of thing) that depicted creation. The spirits looked pained! I am so glad to know we were created by a Heavenly Father who loves us. We were going to go to a mosque as well but traffic hampered us. A drive that normally takes 15 minutes took 2 hours. It is crazy how many people are here. We went to the visitors center at the LDS temple. It was so fun. I have been wanting to take my kids to the Idaho Falls temple to see the renovated visitors center and I guess that is why we go on vacation--so we can do the things we mean to do but don't take time for, like the zoo we have been meaning to visit in Idaho Falls but haven't made it there yet. We went to the National Zoo today. The pandas they have on loan from China were so cute! They pay a million per panda per year to China for the pandas. Outrageous! It was so fun to see all the animals and the zoo was so cool as to have so many interactive things for kids to do. I could have stayed longer but everything is closing early for the inauguration. We don't see a lot of kids here as we drive around. The travel took us a total of 3 hours to get there and get back which is not because of distance. So that was about all we got done today. My kids will appreciate no traffic Idaho all the more when we get home. Also a funny note: when we got back to Bridger's brothers house for dinner, Brynna went to go wash her hands. She told me the water wouldn't come on. She was in there waving her hands in front of the faucet. She has been in too many public bathrooms with automatic faucets. When we get home it will be going back to the stone age for poor Brynna having to turn the faucet to get the water on.