Obamas checking in to hotel steeped in D.C. history

The hotel that will be home to President-elect Barack Obama and his family for the next couple of weeks offers one of Washington's best views of their future home, the White House, and a past linked with political movers and shakers.

The Obamas will be moving into the Hay-Adams hotel this weekend, aides say. They're doing this in part so that the family's daughters, Sasha and Malia, can begin school when classes reconvene after winter break.

They had hoped to move earlier into nearby Blair House, which president-elects traditionally occupy five days before moving into the White House. But the Bush administration said the house, which is used as a guest house for visiting dignitaries, already had events scheduled there and guests who could not be displaced.

The Obamas will move into Blair House on January 15.

According to its Web site, the Hay-Adams takes its name from past residents of the site -- one of whom had close ties with Obama's favorite U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln.