DC Trip

I had the extreme priveledge of attending the National Epilepsy Foundation's Walk for life and Public Policy Institute. We visited Utah's senators and two of our representatives. We also spoke in front of all the President's of the State Epilepsy Foundations. It was an amazing experience. We also got a little bit of site seeing in while we were there. So warning there is a lot of photos attached with this blog post.

The day of the walk was rainy and muddy. Margo ruined her shoes in the mud. But it was really fun. We walked with over 5000 others for epilepsy awareness. We started the walk just below the capital and went down and around the Washington Monument and back. The total walk was a little over 2.25 miles. I am not use to walking that far by the time we were done with the day we had walked over 5 miles. My legs hurt so bad.

After the walk we took a tour bus around to Arlington. I learned so very much. It is so inspiring. All of these amazing men and women who have given their lives for our freedom. We saw the women in the Military exhibit. I learned a lot about the WASP group from WWII. They were a women's pilot group there was a little over 1000 of them. Margo's mom happens to be one of them. They did this amazing triute to them. These women did amazing work. They weren't even recognized for VA benefits until 1977 or were made officers. They weren't even brought home when one of them died in duty. All the women pulled their money together to get the body home to be buried.

This tribute was really nice. If you ever get to Arlington I suggest you take a few minutes to visit this. Then we went to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I was so amazed at the reverence and awe that was there.

We traveled to the White House visitors center and went back to the hotel. We were incredibly tired. Sunday we did our speach in front of the president's and exec's that were in. The speech went well. I was excited to have it over. Monday we spent the big part of the day in meetings. We learned a lot. Near the end of the day we skipped the talks about how to talk to legislatures (we figured we knew how to do that) and went site seeing. We went to the Jefferson Memorial, Roosevelt Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vetanam Memorial the WWII Memorial. Around where all the memorial are the Cherry Blossom Festival was going on. It was amazing. I took over 100 scenery photos mainly of the flowers. The photo of me has the Jefferson Memorial in the background.

Now that this blog post is getting even longer. Tuesday we had our meetings up at Capital Hill. Believe me it is a hill after all the walking we did. We met with three out of the five Senators and Reps offices. We dropped info off at one other. I was really impressed with Jason Chaffetz's office and staff for being the new guy on the block and not being on any health committee's they were really receptive. We met with Orrin Hatch personally. Well at least long enough for the photo op. His office staffer was amazing and commended us a lot on the bill we passed in Utah.

Wednesday was our travel home day. We had a breakfast meeting with people from the National Epilepsy Foundation. I was excited to be going home and my kids couldn't wait. Although they were spoiled by Grandma so I am suprised they wanted me home at all. Erik did a great job will I was gone. I am really proud of him. We ended up being delayed in the airport for a while and it took a lot longer than it was suppose to but while it was storming on the ground I took this photo above the clouds over DC. It was a beautiful site. I am really shocked that the photo turned out. Now I just have to get back into the routine and on the right time zone.