White House holiday tour

Only two more holiday-related posts to go! Chronologically, this was what we did first, so I thought I'd start with it. On the Saturday before Christmas, Evan managed to get tickets for us and his parents to go on a holiday tour at the White House. Despite my many trips to see the sites in DC over the years, I'd not previously been in the White House and certainly never when it's decorated for the holidays! You can see a lot of the decorations in photos online, but seeing it all in person was really amazing.

We arrived a bit early so we could walk around the outside of the White House, despite the ridiculous cold and wind. It was hard to get a good shot of the WH due to the position of the sun; despite the backlighting I still really like this shot!

 After waiting in line outside, then walking through two separate ID check points (one of which involved a scan and being sniffed by a dog - WH is heavy on the security, obviously), we were in! I managed to grab a shot of the kids in front of the first tree we saw, but it was so crowded afterwards that it was difficult to get a good photo of the decorations, much less with the kids. So, I took what I could get when I could get it!

The first hallway we walked down had these beautiful stained glass "ornaments" hanging in the window. I absolutely loved this one, and submitted it for a photo contest I'm in every week on FB - that week's topic was "windows". I didn't win, but I thought it was a good submission nonetheless!

 Then we started coming to the various roped off rooms. This one on the left was one of the formal rooms used for entertaining - the color scheme was so beautiful! I really liked the pastel, almost Victorian vibe. I don't remember which room the one on the right was from, but I really liked the feel of this photo as well.

I After viewing a few others (all of which were hard to photograph, due to there being a large number of people crowding in front of each roped-off doorway), we came to a large room where most people were stopped. Turns out, it was the East Room! We actually stood in the exact spot where President Obama was standing when he announced that we had killed Osama Bin Laden. Pretty crazy.

 When we entered the room, we could hear classical music being played. I thought it was piped in, but no - turns out there was a high school orchestra from outside of Philadelphia playing for everyone! I can't even imagine being one of those kids. They were amazing!

  
It was at that point that we ran into friends of ours, also on the tour. Natalie and Nola used to take dance class together, and her mom Molly is involved in the Democrats with Evan. Despite the many people I managed to get a couple of photos of Natalie and Nola together - the two of them are adorable!

 After passing through a few small rooms, we came to another large one (although I cannot remember the name of this one). It contained the item below - a white chocolate version of the White House!

 I would have loved to have gotten more pictures of everything we saw, but it was so difficult with the number of people. While there were set times to start each "tour", there was no set time frame for moving through - you were on your own walking around inside. So, there was no one pushing anyone to leave, meaning every 30 minutes more people entered, but didn't necessarily leave. With the 6 of us, and the kids getting tired, we just couldn't stay as long as we would've liked and I know I missed some good photos, but I took what I could. I'm going to be posting the more "artistic" shots on the photo blog shortly!

I had to get a shot of Evan in this "official" location (with flags and seal)

 Molly then grabbed this family photo for us, just before we left.

 And Grandpa Doug took this one of the four of us outside of the WH.

 I then made sure to get at least one decent shot of the outside of the WH from within the gates - who knows when I will get that opportunity again! The WH was still pretty backlit, which made getting a good shot difficult, but I did my best.