We were the very first family through the doors at the National Museum of American History that morning. It's one of the many Smithsonian Museums and there's far more to see and look at in there than you could ever hope to see in the few hours that we had, but we gave it our best shot!
We saw Dorothy's ruby slippers, Kermit the Frog (who is much smaller than he appears), Fonzie's coat, Archie Bunker's chair, and many, many exhibits on the American presidents, transportation, science, and wars.
Monkey sees how he measures up to one of the greatest American presidents...
Lily gets ready to give Ronald Reagan's speech with the famous line, "Mr. Gorbachov, tear down that wall".
And of course, no American History museum would be complete if it didn't have some reference to the Star Wars movies that are such a part of our culture.
In the early afternoon, we made our way over to the National Archives. It started to rain lightly on our walk over there and continued to rain as we stood in line. There's security at the entrance to just about every building, so nothing moves very quickly. Once inside, we were again lined up and eventually allowed into the Rotunda where the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights are on exhibit. The Declaration is getting very faded and thin, and as we stood there looking at it, I asked each of my kids to take a "brain picture" (the only kind allowed in there) to remember it with, as it may not last long enough to be seen by their children or grandchildren. However, the part of this building that impressed our younger set the most was the Declaration that was engraved in the doors of the elevator!
The soldier walks 21 steps, stops, faces the graves for 21 seconds, and then turns and walks back 21 steps. The graves are guarded 24/7, rain or shine, and the ceremony takes place even when no one is there to watch it. The picture below shows the new guard coming on duty and having a full army inspection by his sargeant before assuming his assigned duty. 
On one side of these soldiers is a beautiful reflecting wall with images of those who died in the war etched in. They are of many different sizes, and there is no real order to the etchings, but somehow that made it only more touching. At night, when the wall is lit up, the 19 soldiers reflect onto this wall, giving an appearence of 38. It represents the 38th parallel, which was the line between North and South Korea. 
From there, it was just a short walk over to visit Abraham Lincoln. Our younger set was quite impressed by this memorial, and Monkey even knew it was the one on the penny! We all agreed that the memorial building itself was much larger than we expected, but Abe was smaller than expected.
We all left the Creation Museum feeling like if that was all we did for our vacation that we would've been happy. Everyone loved it and it was definitely one of the big highlights of our trip.
One thing we really noticed on this trip is just how many kinds of beautiful there are. The mountains and lakes are beautiful.
The hot springs are beautiful...
Even though they don't smell beautiful.
Old Faithful is beautiful.
Even the bison who strolled right past us was beautiful in his own way.
The river and canyon are beautiful.
It's just beautiful there...no matter what you happen to be looking at.
Boy, do I miss waking up to this view!
We also did some actual fossil hunting (on land where it was legal to take the fossils!). The kids found some "devil's toe nails" (sea-shells) and some teeny-tiny fossils called cloynoids (sp?) which are actually tiny coral. 
I wish you could've been there to watch Mango's eyes get big when she realized exactly where and when those fossils came from. I asked her how she thought sea-shell and coral fossils might end up on top of a mountain. She answered "water", and I asked her to imagine just how much water it would take to cover this big old mountain we were on, and asked her if she knew when that happened. Random helped her out by answering Noah's flood, and I told her that was right - that what she was holding in her hands were most-likely fossils made during the time of Noah's flood. It was a pretty amazing idea to me too!
Because he's an avid hunter, he owns a wide variety of guns from small to big, and they get to try pretty much all of them!
And I am sure that Random would like you to know that he won some sort of shooting contest that they held - beating out both his big brother and his uncle (though I am quite sure the details on that are a bit fuzzy!).
Sunday morning we awoke slightly stiff (okay, the adults were anyway!) from the previous day's adventures and headed off to church. We attend a larger-sized church at home, but there is something very special about a small church where everyone knows everyone. The people were very warm and have a genuine passion for making a difference in their community. It was a good reminder to be praying for the smaller churches, their pastors, and the impact they are making in lives, even without a big budget.
We jumped, soaked, and played together for a couple of hours. (That's Random in mid-air!)
This is my niece's daughter "A" with Lily and Mango. She and her two sisters spent three of our four Wyoming days with their grandparents and us, and we all really enjoyed our time together. I think I would've brought them home with us, if we only had had room in our vehicle!
