The White House grounds are only open to the public two weekends a year, in the spring and in the fall. Fortunately for us, this autumn they were open on a day that we didn't have other plans, and it was a gorgeous day. Behind us is the lawn where the annual White House Easter egg roll is held.
Not very often you can get such close-up views of the front of the White House.
Below is a picture of the Rose Garden; I guess it was the wrong time of year for roses!
Below is the view you'd see out the front windows of the White House. Pretty sweet view, isn't it? That's the Jefferson Memorial on the right.
There's a Children's Garden that has handprints of the children and grandchildren of the presidents. I'd just finished reading Laura Bush's biography Spoken from the Heart, and she wrote many memories of living in the White House--so that's who I thought of as we toured the grounds.
There were about 25 markers like the one below, most with pictures, showing which President or his wife had planted the trees on the grounds. 
The picture below is of the Jacqueline Kennedy garden; not sure why she, of all the first ladies throughout history, gets a garden named after her. The gardens themselves weren't as spectacular as I thought they'd be, but the history that has taken place on the grounds was what made it so awesome to be there.
We spent less than an hour in the gardens, then toured the World War II Memorial with a guide. After that we went to the National Archives to view the 1935 Nazi papers signed by Adolf Hitler, declaring that Jews weren't citizens and the list of things they weren't allowed to do. These papers were recently donated to the National Archives (Patton had brought them back to the states) and were only on display for ten days. All in all it was a very interesting day in DC.
