One last post from D.C.!!!

Light art in the walkaway between the east and west National Gallery of Art buildings. 

Andy Warhol
Green Marilyn, 1962

Chuck Close
Fanny/Finger painting, 1985
This painting was done with ONLY Close's fingerprints. 

Vincent Van Gogh
Roulin's Baby, 1888

Representative Kilmer's office in the Longworth Building. 

The Capitol Rotunda
Painting at the top of the dome is titled Apotheosis of Washington
which depicts 13 maidens representative of the 13 original colonies. 

Hello everyone! Last day in D.C.!

Today we met Senator Patty Murray in the Senate Russell Building. We were able to get a group picture with her. After the half hour meet and greet, we ran into Senator John McCain - we said hello and good morning to him as we passed him in the hallways. 

Then we had a tour at the National Gallery of Art. They had many interesting pieces of art including one made of finger prints that looked very realistic. The tour showed us how modern artists are breaking the rules in art versus basing their artwork on absolute realism. Some pieces had odd colors like Van Gogh's green baby oil painting. 

After lunch, we were able to take a Capitol tour thanks to another HMS parent who put us in touch with Rep. Derek Kilmer - thank you VERY much; the Capitol tour was easily one of the top highlights of our trip! Representative Kilmer had two of his staff members take us on an extensive, three hour Capitol tour, but we were not able to see Rep. Kilmer much due to his busy schedule. The tour was awesome. There were many statues and paintings and every room was beautiful. The design of everything was great; it was symmetrical and full of detail. They even had a room dedicated to statues! Congress had recently put a statue of Rosa Parks in the statue room. We got to see the old senate house.

Today was an extremely busy day. Below are some more highlights / fun facts of our last full day in D.C.:

• We sat in the House of Representatives gallery and watched representatives debate the "Working Families Flexibility Act." We were lucky enough to hear Sen. Nancy Pelosi speak against the bill. 
• We saw the original Supreme Court chambers where the decision of the Dred Scott case was handed down. 
• D.C. was designed in a diamond shape - the center of D.C. exists in the Capitol and is referred to as the 'structural center of D.C.' - it is considered good luck to stand on this point and we all did. 
• Every state in our country has two statues that represent each state in the Capitol. Washington's statues are of Chief Joseph and Marcus Whitman. 
• One of the most controversial state statues is Mississippi's statue of Jefferson Davis - the President of the Confederate States of America. 

There were many things that we did, but my favorite was the art tour. That's pretty much all. Tomorrow we will be getting up at 4:00 am EST (1:00 am PST) to get ready before our shuttle picks us up at 5:00 am. We will be back in sunny Seattle at 10:30 am! Bye!

See you tomorrow, 

"Hewie" & "Bambi"