Thursday October 23, 2013

I really think that using luxury and bus in any sentence is kind of an oxymoron! By the way the definition for oxymoron is: a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness”. Cruel kindness! I slept (when I was sleeping) like a pretzel! We're on a newer bus. It's nice, don't get me wrong, but sleep with 25 excited kids with rest stops every 2 hours, sleep is not something you can truly do well! 

Ok, I know you really aren't reading this blog to hear I slept! We left Westville Schools about 5:45 CST and right away reset our watches to EST. We watched a couple of movies and called it lights out about midnight. 

The hot spots of today were first pulling into a rest stop about 5:00 am to get dressed for the day. Why is that important? Well, normally all of the girls are trying to get ready in a 2 person stall bathroom! Today we had the extravagant use of plugs, lots of sinks and lots of stalls! Sorry boys and dads, but that's an important feature to all of the ladies on the trip!  

After breakfast we went to the FDR Memorial http://www.nps.gov/frde/index.htm
and the MLK Memorial http://www.nps.gov/mlkm/index.htm

Next, we were off to the Washington Cathedral. http://www.nationalcathedral.org/  It was built in 1907 and the columns are built with limestone from Indiana. It's has the 2nd highest point in Washington DC. It receives absolutely no money from the government. Ronald Reagan's funeral was here and so was Woodrow Wilson. Wilson is also entombed there.

After lunch at Union Station, we went to the Capital Building. The House of Representatives and the Senate were surprisingly not in session (that was a little bit of sarcasm there). We had a wonderful guide who had nothing but wonderful things to say about our kids. This makes me one proud teacher!  

The emotional tour of Daniel's Story at the Holocaust Museum http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/museum-exhibitions/remember-the-children-daniels-story was the end of tour for today. We did walk to the White House to try and get our White House group pictures but something was going on. We weren't allowed to go on Pennsylvania Avenue and everything was blocked off. We'll have to watch the news tonight to see what was going on there today. Hopefully tomorrow, we'll get some better pictures.

After dinner and a swim in the pool, hopefully the kids will get some sleep. Ok, More tomorrow!