Our Memorial Day

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend. We had a great time! Aunt Debbie and Gary were visiting this weekend, and we did all sorts of sight-seeing and went to several holiday events. It was a blast.

Debbie and Gary arrived on Saturday afternoon. We had lunch at the apartment and then I took them out to King Street for some shopping, and Eric met us out there for dinner. Then we took them for our ever-popular nighttime monument tour (it really is the best way to see the monuments, I think). All the monuments looked beautiful all lit up, as always. Plus, they were all covered in wreaths, flowers, and other memorabilia in honor of the holiday. It was really moving.

The Korean Memorial covered in wreaths for the holiday

On Sunday, Eric opted to stay in to do some bar exam studying (poor thing, that will be the story of his life this summer), so I headed out with Debbie and Gary to see some more sights. We went to the Old Post Office Pavilion and tower, and then the two sculpture gardens on the Mall. It was an absolutely beautiful weekend weather-wise, so it was really nice to stroll through the sculptures on such a gorgeous day.

From there, we picked up some hot dogs from a street vendor for dinner then headed to the Capitol lawn to find a seat for the PBS National Memorial Day Concert, which was wonderful. It was moving and sad at times, as they told veterans' stories from several different wars. I enjoyed the music and performances very much, and it was a beautiful night. We had a great time.

The Memorial Day Concert stage (host Gary Sinise is on the screen)

On Monday, Memorial Day, we all (including Eric!) got up early to go to Arlington Cemetery for their Memorial Day ceremony. We got there about an hour and a half early, and the Amphitheater where the ceremony was to be held was already jam-packed with people! There were no seats left, so we had to stand in a roped-off section in the back. We still had a pretty decent view, and at least we were in the shade, so we were pretty content. While we waited for the ceremony to begin, Senator Bob Dole came walking down the line of people, shaking hands! So that was pretty neat.

Senator Dole

Then, just a few minutes before the ceremony was going to start, someone approached us and told us that there were open seats available (I guess not all of the reserved seats had been filled), so they offered us a seat. We said sure, and followed the woman to our seats - about 8 rows from the front of the Amphitheater! It was incredible, our seats were fantastic! So we ended up with a great view of the stage, including President Bush when he spoke, and we were right along the side where other important political figures sat, including the First Lady. Talk about luck!

The President and Secretary of Defense during the National Anthem

Laura Bush

The ceremony was, of course, beautiful. Once it was over we did a little bit of walking around Arlington Cemetery. All the graves were decorated with flags, which was cool to see. In our wandering, we actually came across something Eric and I had never seen before - the graves of several Supreme Court Justices! We found the graves of Justices Douglas, Stewart, Blackmun, Marshall, and Chief Justices Burger and Rehnquist. We found Rehnquist purely by chance, as he was not buried in the same cluster as the other Justices were. As we were looking at the graves of the others, I wondered where Rehnquist was buried, but we didn't see him so we continued on. I then stopped to take a picture of the Arlington House over a hill with headstones in front. I just thought it was a neat shot. When we got home, I realized that I had taken a picture of Rehnquist's headstone without realizing it!

The graves of Brennan, Burger and Stewart

Chief Justice Rehnquist is the center headstone in this picture, behind the very front one

We then left Arlington Cemetery and headed over to the Marine Corps War Memorial, which I had never seen before. It was very impressive.

Eric and I at the Marine Corps Memorial

After that we had lunch in Rosslyn (and introduced Debbie and Gary to Chipotle, which I swear, will change your life - and they will now back me up on that), then Eric went back home to continue his studies while I took Debbie and Gary back into DC for more monument walking. We started by stopping at the WWII Memorial to find a little-known secret that Debbie had read about: Kilroy! As you can see below, we were succesful!

"Kilroy was here" at the WWII Memorial

After locating Kilroy we hit the FDR Memorial and Jefferson Memorial. Then, Debbie and Gary decided to continue on with their sightseeing and I went home to hang out with Eric for a bit. We cooked dinner for them that night when they had finished their touring of DC.

Tuesday Debbie and Gary did their own thing, so Eric and I had the day to ourselves. And we bought a Wii Fit! It's so much fun. I'm sure you can expect a whole separate blog post relating to the Wii Fit one of these days.

Wednesday, Gary left, so Debbie and I spent the afternoon shopping in Old Town together. That night we ordered pizza and watched our wedding video with her, then she left early Thursday morning. And that was the last of our visitors for a while!

We had a great weekend, and even though we're exhausted after our solid month of visitors, Eric and I love hosting guests. Please everyone, feel free to visit us in DC in the next two months, or in NYC after that! We'd love to have you!