A Capital Christmas Eve

We celebrated Christmas Eve in our nation's capital. It was a misty, rainy day with very few tourists out and about.

We wouldn't have been there, either, except for the fact that we're delaying our Christmas celebration till the 27th when Brittany, John and Crystal will be here.

Fortunately, Amanda and Nolan arrived Tuesday and we were able to spend the day showing Nolan around. We started with a walk through the Roosevelt Memorial.

The rain was pretty constant but not cold or blowing, so it was fine being outside. Amanda and I had wet feet by the time we visited the Martin Luther King Memorial.

We got to go inside the Lincoln Memorial and dry out for a bit. We happily met a nice tourist couple who really knew how to take a picture. They lined us up perfectly for this shot overlooking the reflecting pond and the Washington Monument!

The Vietnam Memorial looked especially poignant with the rain drops on the granite.Even with the overcast we could still see ourselves in the wall!

None of the fountains are on in the winter, but the WWII Memorial was still impressive! I caught Ed peeking in on this photo of Amanda and Nolan!

Ed and I did some car shuttling while Amanda and Nolan went to the American history museum. We were able to park right across from the Smithsonian. We then joined them in the museum. They were able to also see the National Archives, the Air and Space Museum and the Library of Congress, all in one day! It was nice for them that we were able to drop them off and pick them up  a little. We were happy to oblige and give our feet a rest. We ended up with over 19,000 steps!

On the way home we stopped at the LDS temple outside Silver Spring, MD. It was fun seeing the spires disappear into the mists. The rain stopped, and we were able to walk around without umbrellas finally!

We saw Mr. Krueger's Christmas and The Nativity. They also had some creches on display as well as some beautifully decorated Christmas trees.

By the time we came outside it was dark, and the temple and the Christmas lights were all on. It was beautiful!

The seemed to have more lights than normal. Either the mild weather gave them a lot of time to get the lights up, or the mild weather let us enjoy walking through them more. Either way, we enjoyed the display very much.

And what Christmas Eve wouldn't been complete without a Mexican dinner! We stopped at Cafe Rio on the way home. It was the perfect end to a really memorable and unique Christmas Eve!