Friday, December 31, 2010

Exit

This was the view from the end of the hallway on our way out. It was quite beautiful.

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A beautiful garland:

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The kids and I:

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A corner of this ginormous room:

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The last shot before going back out in the freezing cold:

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I Dream in White Chocolate

Here is the amazing white chocolate/gingerbread house.

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It only weighed about 450 pounds.

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And had real working chandeliers inside.

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And there’s Bo again. If you click the photo you may be able to see that there is even a decorated tree inside that cutout. Amazing.

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Bet you don’t know what they do with all that chocolate after the holidays.

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I asked the security guy, and he said they take it to the White House visitor center for awhile and then they throw it away after that. Yes, THROW it away!

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All that hard work just goes in the trash!

Simple Gifts

The theme of the White House decorations this year was “Simple Gifts”. Each tree had a banner across it that reminded us to be thankful for our everyday blessings.

For instance, this tree celebrated the “Gift of Stories”:

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And this one was the “Gift of Music”:

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This one was the “Gift of Friends and Family”:

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You get the idea…right?

These next trees were really cool! They were made out of recycled newspaper and magazines and then spray painted a glittery gold:

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These too:

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The main tree represented the “Gift of the American Spirit”:

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In the red room was the “Gift of Traditions”:

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And, I can’t remember what the gift was in this room, but the flowers were gorgeous!

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Entering the White House

This is the first thing you see when you finally make it through all the security check points a the White House.

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Right inside the doors; former President Andrew Johnson:

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The hallway. I thought these giant wreaths were really cool! They were made from real produce!

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Here are a few pictures that I got of the first area we toured:

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The big dog in my next photo was made out of thousands of pipe cleaners!

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On Our Way…

I am about to post a few photo heavy blogs just to get them up before the New Year becomes official…I’ve found that having a 4 month old in the house eats up most of my free time, can you imagine?

Dad and Zoe on the Metro heading into DC for the White House tour. Can you tell it was cold outside?

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Mom playing around on the Metro.

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We found this cool barbell to pose with once we got out of the train station.

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The Treasury Department.

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Giant Nutcrackers.

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The other side of the Treasury Department. The building is HUGE!!

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There were so many things to take pictures of, unfortunately we were practically running in order to make our 3:30 tour time. I’d love to head back down to DC next year just to take pictures of all the decorated buildings lit up at night.

Friday, December 24, 2010

The East Room…I think!

Last night as I was going through all my White House pictures, I realized I had enough for a few posts, so I’m going to back track a little.

Remember this “peacock” tree?

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Well, in the same room as this tree (which I believe was the East room) was this gorgeous mantle:

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There was also a flute chorus playing while we toured this room:

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Did you notice the mural behind them? Pretty cool, huh? And what is that big instrument that looks like a giant 4? Dad called it the 4 Horn…lol.

Check out this portrait of George Washington:

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We were told that it was one of the very first portraits to be hung in the White House.

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Thursday, December 23, 2010

A White House Christmas

This year my parents, the kids and I had the opportunity to go to the White House to see the Christmas decorations. Tony opted to stay at home with Harper because my dad was only able to get 5 tickets and it wasn’t something he was interested in anyways.

I don’t even know where to begin in terms of describing all of the Christmas decorations, but it really was quite amazing. There were trees decorated to perfection in each of the rooms we were permitted to look through, and it was amazing how beautiful each one was.

I took hundreds of photo’s, and as hard as it is, I’m only going to post a few here…or it could take until next Christmas to finish this post!

This was outside the door where we began our tour:

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This is the first tree you see. There were tables set up where you could write a letter to a soldier, and the ladies manning the station offered to take our picture. Don’t ask me what I’m doing with my leg…

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The hallway:

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One of the first rooms we peeked into:

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Across the hallway:

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The tree with the peacock feathers; I love how they used the gold leaves!

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This is the main attraction, or the “official” tree for 2010. Of all the trees we saw, this was my least favorite. It was 19 1/2 feet tall, and impossible to get the entire thing in a photo.

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The next one was probably my favorite:

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The tour only lasted about 30-45 minutes total, but I really enjoyed it. I have so many more photo’s to share, but this post is already way too long…so, maybe more tomorrow!

April Fools Pranks

The two little kids made me laugh yesterday morning.  I was upstairs getting things ready for school when I heard them talking about how ...