The Happy Hymes Family: August 2009

The Reflecting Pool by the Lincoln Memorial.

The Jefferson Memorial

The White House

The Capitol

Our summer vacation was very fun and exciting. We saw many differnet things that most kids our age don't get to see. We visited new states that we had never been (I am up to 37!), saw many differnet attractions, and evn saw some different kinds of people.

Our first stop was Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. When we first got into town we stopped at Pirmanti Brothers our favorite place to eat in Pitt. Then we went to the Duquesne Inlcine and rode up to the top and took a tour of how it runs. It was pretty cool. Then, since it had been a long day traveling, we went to the hotel and swam for abut an hour then just layed around and watched tv.

The next day we went to Kennywood. There was so much differnet rides. I have been to a lot of amusment parks and festivals and this place had some super duper rides! We went on two water rides and got totally soaked (we saved the water rides for last so we didn't have to be wet all day and feel uncomfortable. Kennywood is much much better than Six Flags. They have a bigger park and better rides.

On Wednesday we left early and drove to Gettysburg. We were planning on it being about a 2 hour ride to Gettysburg from Pitt but it ended up being 4 hours so when we got to Gettysburg we had to hurry to finish the self guided tour so we could still get to Washington D.C.

Gettysburg was fun. I am not a big history person so it wasn't my favorite part of the trip but it was quite fun. We ended up getting to getting stuck in rush hour and we didn't get into town until after it was pretty much dark. We got to "our" hotel and waited in line forever to then figure out we had the wrong Holiday Inn. So we found our way the right one. Once we got there we were all exhausted and we went to sleep after eating our complimentary cake that they left us for having so much trouble checking in. We got to go look at the pool on the roof but didn't get to swim that night becuase the pool closed at 10 and it was past 10., but we swam every night we were there for about 2 hours each time,

While in Washinton D.C. we went to 4 of the smithsonian's, saw Alan Bean (famous for going into space)(he stayed at our hotel also)went to the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorial, saw the Capital and White House, went up in the Washington Monument, Visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and went and saw the Bill of Rights, Constitution, Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Inpendence, and the Magna Carta.

It was a very fun and exciting experience. I wish we could have stayed longer but we had to get home to see our puppy who we missed A LOT!

After about a week we got back we went to St. Louis and saw the Jonas Brother concert! IT WAS SOOOO MUCH FUN!! I WAN'T AT ALL EXCITED ABOUT IT BEFORE BUT AM SO GLAD I WENT!!!!!!!! I WILL NEVER FORGET IT! I LOVE THEM!!!!!!!