Christmas Trilogy, Episode 1

Thus begins the tale of our first ever Christmas together.  The pain and dreaming of finally being together from former Christmases filled with phone calls, instant messaging, love notes, emails, and skype is easy to recall, though with the blessing of marriage this year, it is fading into a distant shadow of things past.  It causes one to pray for friends and family who desire the same.

This first post in the Christmas series features an early morning to late night trip to a rather blustery and frigid Washington D.C.  Any future trips will be planned in warmer weather.

 Inside shot of the Smithsonian Castle.  Gorgeous!

 Brian and I decided that if we ever build a house, this is what the library will look like...  Dreaming doesn't cost money, so it's fun to build our dream house.

 Brian took most of the pictures and mostly of random objects.

 In the Air and Space Museum, there is a display that lists the requirements of flight attendants back when flight was first invented.  We thought most of them rather silly, but an interesting read.  A few signs were indicative of the morals that once existed--you couldn't be a flight attendant if you were married, divorced, had children, or "loose."

 This is an example of an outlandish requirement...

 Brian took plenty of airplane pictures...

 Our capitol! (Not to be confused with "capital" which deals with money)

 I was rather fascinated by this silver metal tree.  It was beside an outdoor skating rink and adorable restaurant, and if it hadn't been so expensive, we would have tried it.   I've never been to an outdoor skating rink.

 We only looked in the front door of this museum...  Natural history is NOT one of my favorite topics and Brian wasn't interested either.

 Living History! 

 Brian was hugely fascinated with this sculpture of George Washington and took about 20 various shots in various angles and lighting effects.

 While we didn't tour all of the museum, we did check out Julia Child's Kitchen.  She has been my culinary inspiration of late and I had to see this display.

 Brian and I were both enthralled with how many different kitchen tools Julia owned!  This is only a sampling.  There were tools for activities we didn't even dream existed!  I think Brian enjoyed perusing this section even more than I did; particularly because he thinks we should add to our collection so he can have more "toys" to play with.  Her life is an intriguing study.

 Part of Julia's kitchen.  Brian and I discussed the aspects we liked and what we would change; one of which being the colors in her kitchen and the organization.

 Next stop: Holocaust museum.  Worth the trip, but horrific.  I don't plan to visit there again anytime soon.

 This place was full of one of my favorite topics: journalism.

 So true!

  But don't get me started...

 Washington Monument.  It was closed, so all we could do was look at it from afar.  I lost my hat here and my amazing husband chased it down for me.  My favorite hat has somehow been misplaced since I have been married.

 Half-mast.

 "O say, can you see?"

I was amazed that these flowers were all still in bloom!  So pretty.  

Well, that's all for now, Folks!

Smiles!