As I mentioned when I started this blog, I’ve taken a new job that requires me to travel to a client’s site each week and am currently working on a project outside Washington, DC. For the last 2 weeks, my wife and 3 kids have been here with me.
My wife homeschools our twin 9-year-old daughters (and most likely will our son, but at 7 months old, he’s not a very good student right now). Homeschooling not only gives grat flexibility in when you do school, but also WHERE you do school. So for the last two weeks, their “schoolhouse” has been relocated up here. As you can imagine, the Washington, DC area is a gold mine in terms of things to see and do and the girls have had an absolute blast going to all the different museums, monuments and attractions around DC. Even the ride on the Metro (subway) here was a treat for them.
One of the highlights for me for this trip was being able to attend the dedication ceremony for the US Air Force Memorial in Arlington, VA. Being a prior Air Force enlisted person, it was very neat to find out that the one weekend that I would be staying here (instead of flying home on Friday afternoon like normal) was the weekend they were to have the ceremony. We had to watch the actual proceedings from the south parking lot at the Pentagon due to space restrictions at the memorial itself. There were aircraft, vehicles and other equipment on static display along with tents with information about many different parts of the Air Force. The girls even got to pet one of the falcons that are the official mascots of the US Air Force Academy.
After we left the ceremony, we went for a quick trip through Arlington National Cemetary and were fortunate enough to get to see the changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Having been a member of the base honor guard when I was on active duty in the Air Force, seeing the precision and professionalism of these soldiers was incredible. I thought we were good, but these guys were absolutely perfect.
Anyway, as of about 4:30EDT this afternoon, our working vacation comes to an end as we fly back to Tennessee. The girls have memories, photos and journals that they’ll be able to keep for a lifetime. For me, it was nice to have the family along to change things up a little bit.