You know how it is when you get home from vacation and you need a vacation to recover from vacation? Yeah, that was yesterday. Laundry, bills to pay, homework, cat puke on the carpet to get out, cleaning up around the house, lunches to pack...back to the routine.In case you're wondering, we walked our legs off in Washington DC. We arrived Thursday afternoon and left Monday afternoon. We stayed south of the mall about 4 blocks south of the new Indian museum, a block from the Federal SW metro stop. Great hotel, decent prices, awesome breakfast included. The first two days were steady rain, but we donned our rain gear and ventured out as soon as we hit the ground. Mom had done an awesome job getting all the information gathered up, and we made a grid of what we would do to fit as much stuff in as possible, and I believe we were very successful. We'd all been to the Virginia side (Arlington, Mount Vernon) and never ventured west of the Potomac River except the airport.
- Thursday: Smithsonian Air & Space Museum (including a small exibit from the closed for renovation Museum of American History), Corcoran Museum of Art, strolled by the White House and were ushered out of "the park" about 9pm when the presidential helicopter was expected to fly in from his trip to the fires in CA.
- Friday: tour of the Supreme Court (featuring Moses and Solomon in the highest chamber of the land), National Archives, Navy Memorial, Old Post Office (first time, couldn't get up into the tower), White House Visitors Center (this is where we were going when we saw Mike & Deb Alley - skip it if you go, they don't even have a model!), Fords Theater and the house where Lincoln died (theater closed for renovation - we saw it last time), Madam Toussaud's Wax Museum (expensive, but really cool - Grace's favorite place "where they make the plastic people"), International Spy Museum (really good - I would like to go back and do the spy activity sometime).
Saturday: Library of Congress. This was an awesome building, my favorite of all we saw. Reagan building (nice food court, good way to cut through a few blocks out of the rain), Old Post office (again, line too long to go up to the tower), Octagon house (been closed for two years, you think they could post that on their web info somewhere?), Daughters of the American Revolution building (we walked all the way around it to get inside - a sign would have been helpful to show where the construction entrance was), World War II Memorial, Washington Monument (we decided we would touch it instead of climb it), Museum of Natural History (I disliked this one last time we went, but the stuffed animals were cool. It is saturated with evolution, at one point I nearly cried. The photo shows the rat like creature that "a close relative of this tiny creature was the first mammal on earth. Its DNA was passed on to billions of descendants - including you." Followed up by a night tour of the monuments (save your money and do it during the day - too many light bulbs out on a few of the monuments to get a good taste) - Korean, Vietnam, FDR, Lincoln, and some drivebys of other stuff we'd already walked past. 
Sunday. We started off reading a chapter from Jeremiah 1, because that is where Dad is in his 90 day Bible Reading. I was pushing for the end of Ezekiel. We walked up to the east end of the mall and watched about 15 minutes of the 32nd annual Marine's marathon. Then on to the Smithsonian Indian museum (dissappointing exhibits - not much historical info, mostly current, cool architecture). The cafeteria had interesting food: octupus, frog legs. Back to the old post office and we finally got up to the top. We then went to the Washington Cathedral (off the beaten path) and sat through a Lutheran service. Grace wanted to go back to the children's chapel, where she "read" scripture (and from several other chapels on site). Well worth seeing - it took 80 years to construct and was only completed in 1990. By the way, get a transfer from the metro station for the bus and save .85 cents. We ended up back in China town for supper, then to the pool.- Monday. Tour of the Capitol arranged by Senator Lugar's office. We ate an $11 salad at the Smithsonian Art Museum. Then the fun began. Back to the hotel to get our stowed bags and to the airport. On the platform of the Metro exit at the airport, we discovered baby Sarah and Baby Susie, Grace's dolls, had been left at the hotel. Everyone else went to the terminal, mommy went back to the hotel to get the dolls. Doing her own little Marines marathon. Success. On the way back on the platform of the metro train, Jeff called to say they had bumped us from our flight because our bags had not been checked 1-1/2 hours before the flight must be a Reagan National thing. Oh well, I wouldn't have made it back for the flight anyway. So now rather than a non stop, we get to go to Detroit! We had been unable to check ourselves in at the hotel online earlier in the day or week (I think they had overbooked the flight). The Lord was saving us from ourselves! They told the Northwest counter gal the doll sob story and they didn't charge us any fees! We got all five of us on a totally full flight to Detroit and another full flight to Indy. And, if your van is completely dead in long term parking because it is possessed and the lights come on by themselves and drain the battery, if you flag down a shuttle bus, they'll call you a jump that comes in less than 10 minutes and only costs $12. Only God can make that happen. Nobody lost their cool, everyone home safe.
- What we didn't get to see that we wanted to see: Kennedy Center, White House (try to book more than 6 weeks in advance through representative), Jefferson Memorial close up.
Now, the real stuff - Ezekiel
- Chapter 10 - in Ezekiel's vision, God leaves the temple in Jerusalem - he vacates the location where the Israelites could worship and see his glory
- Chapter 11 - the vision makes me wonder if he was actually taken physically to Jerusalem
- 11:19 - "Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in My statues and keep My judgments and do them, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God."
- Chapter 14 - you cannot save anyone else with your righteousness; 18:20 the son shall not bear the guilt of the father (consequences, yes, but guilt, no)
- 14:14 - Daniel (next book to be read) is known to Ezekiel, who started prophesying after Daniel was taken to Babylon and would now likely have been in a position of power under Nebuchadnezzar.
- 16:44 - ‘Like mother, like daughter!’ - I didn't know that was in the Bible.
- 20:25 - “Therefore I also gave them up to statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they could not live" - God, talking about the Israelites - he has another plan in mind
- 21:21 - divination rituals described, including shaking arrows, consulting images, looking at the liver
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