Washington, DC Girl Scout style

This weekend, Ann and I set off for Washington, DC.  This is the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts and there was a huge sing a long planned on the National Mall.

We left at 7am Friday morning on a charter bus with 50 other girl scouts.  Ann and Sullivan, another girl in my troop were the youngest girls on the trip.  We traveled seven hours and we made it!  We then went around the Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport which is near where we were staying.

The first thing we did Saturday morning was to explore the monuments around the mall.  With little legs, you can go get so far, so we only got to see the World War II monument and the Lincoln monument.

Along the way, we ran to lots of other Girl Scouts who were there for the Sing-A-Long as well.   One very interesting tradition of Girl Scouting is the SWAP.  Before a large Girl Scout event, you make little tiny crafts to swap with other Girl Scouts.  Ann and I made about 100 marshmallow sticks to swap with other girls.  This is a sample of what she got in return.  There are SWAPS from all over the country.  She enjoyed the swaping, but the Sing-A-Long was very hot, so we only stayed about 2 hours.

From there, we went paddling on the Potomac River.  It is a lot of work!  But Ann enjoyed the sights on a little boat.

We were able to visit several of the Smithsonians while we were there.  The American History Museum was one of Ann's favorites.  They even had a little exhibit about the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouting.  I thought it could have been much larger though.

The cool thing about going on this trip was that we were with several other troops.  So, we had a group of older Girl Scouts from our service unit to hang out with us during the weekend.  They were awesome with the girls.

Before we left DC, we went to Arlington Cemetery.  This was the first time I was there, I could not get over how big it is.  All you could see was graves and it was quite a humbling experience.  We were able to see the  changing of the guard.  It was an experience every American should have.

And then we were back home again.  The girls had a good time and came home very tired.  It was a wonderful trip and I am very glad that we could be on it.

Our bus driver, Sam, was great.  He was a joy to be around and did whatever he could to make the trip an awesome experience.  He was saying good-bye to us in this picture.  I made the scarf we was were as a small token on my appreciate.

While Ann and I were gone, Mark competed in his first track meet and then all of them went off to Raven Knob for Cub Scout Resident Camp.  My husband is not a picture taker, so we don't have any pictures besides the ones that people have sent me.

How has your summer been?