A fun family field trip

 Last week we had the neat opportunity to visit our State's (Minnesota) Capitol. We could have done it long ago as we have been to the Capital City (St. Paul) many times but we just never did. We had a special reason to go now however- We had two friends elected into office in November and they were sworn in last week so we decided it would be fun to go visit them.

Dave Hancock is our Representative. He is a very neat guy and we had a wonderful time helping with his campaign (Walking in parades for one thing) this past year. The kids liked helping with the parades he was in as he had a little "hummer" that they got to drive and they got to throw out candy. I am looking forward to seeing how Dave does in office. He is very humble (and not a career politician!) but really thinks things through and has firm conservative convictions.

 John Carlson has been a friend for several years now and He was just sworn in as MN Senator. Unfortunately he is not in our district but rather a neighboring one. We had fun helping with his campaign anyway. Door knocking was an interesting experience. :-) John was able to "sneak" us in on the Senate floor. That was pretty neat.

 Mara, Megan and Aaron on one of the neat benches there. We were fascinated to find out that the Capitol building was designed and the construction supervised all by one man who was only 35 when he began. He also designed all the furniture. This Capitol building has the 2nd largest Marble dome in the world. The largest is St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. The 3rd largest is on the Taj Mahal.

Below Ken and Jonathan are standing in the center of the building, underneath the dome. This is where Governor's Bodies lie "At State".

This is in the House Chamber. An older man that worked there let us in to see it and told us all about it. Later we went on a tour and the guide took us up in the balcony of each chamber to show us that. We thought it was fun. My brother in law Travis and my nieces and nephews joined us for the tour.

Over all we had a very good time exploring the capitol, seeing our friends and learning more about the history of our state. Tours our free so it was a frugal experience as well. (though the meter where we parked sure ate up quarters at a rapid rate!). I greatly recommend taking your kid's to visit your state's capitol. I am now wondering if it might be fun to visit the capitol in other states as well.

Have you been to any cool capitol buildings? I would love to hear about your experiences!