Natural History Museum

Today we got packed up and rode the metro down to the Smithsonian. The National Book Festival was going on so it was CRAZY busy. Also they are apparently making improvements to the M so it was a slow and multiple detour process.

 

The boys in front of the dino!

Talking about the sea turtle skeleton

Under the big whale

Crazy, kinda frightening jaw bone and teeth of a giant great white shark.

The boys and I with Mr. Elephant

The Hope Diamond. This 45.52 carat diamond from India is beautiful, blue, and HUGE!!!!

Damon kept thinking that many of the skeletons we were looking at were sword fish from the long noses they had. Well, this one that we saw at the very end happened to be just that! We LoVeD this museum. So many cool things to catch your eye at every turn. And it was a great one to take the kids to. We could really spend hours, days, or even longer at each of the museums. Of course with kids and a limited amount of time it makes things more difficult. I know we have a few months of weekends to do things...but we have SO much we want to do that for now we are just trying to give each museum one day. After a few hours at the museum we walked to Five Guys and had some fantastic burgers and fries.

Right across from the museum was the Department of Justice building.

A little bit down the street we saw the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center.

Mount Vernon and Old Town Virginia

This weekend we drove to Virginia. We went to Mount Vernon first which was about an hour away. It was a beautiful drive. Of course it is super green and lush there too. There were so many people that we drove around forever looking for parking. After we got in we saw they were having a Market going on this weekend, so maybe that was the cause. Such a cool place though. 

Damon next to 'little Washy'-President Washington's grandson

They were showing and selling lots of old timey stuff.

Pottery Man

Music people

They had a Militia training reenactment they did in front of the house.

They opened it up for questions and stuff after. Cool to see the uniforms and guns up close.

Mount Vernon Estate

Gardens

Don't mind Kyle's crazy eyes...he just can't keep them off me :)

The tour of the Estate was really cool. The rooms were so decorated and had such vibrant paint on the walls. To see the original furniture and things they used was just amazing. They had 9 guest rooms! And the kitchen was separate from the house.

They talked about the treatment that was done on the outside walls. It was wood planks which were carved to look like stone. Then they were painted and had sand thrown on it while it was still wet. That made it have this sort of stucco look.

The view from the back porch

Then we went to Old Town Alexandria. Loved the old shops, restaurants, and water front.

We tried this pizza place, and it was great!

 The Reagan Airport is pretty close so you could see the planes coming in to land.

This guy was playing music with these glasses that had water in them. It was freaking awesome!

Love the cute shops!