This past weekend David was selected to participate in an electronic music festival.
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| Festival poster with David's name on it |
Originally, he was going to drive up by himself, but after I wrecked our car and our rental car was upgraded to a minivan (long story that I will blog about later), we decided to take the whole family.
Despite the photographic evidence, the kids LOVE the van. We could never have made this trip in the Cobalt. It would have been claustrophobic.
I had never seen so much cotton. There were lots of little fields of it all through North Carolina and into Virginia.
The fall leaves were beautiful. We don't get leaves like this in South Carolina.
Our original plan was to visit the Air & Space Museum and the Museum of Natural History. We only had one day, our kids are little and it was pretty cold, so we figured that would be about all we'd get done.
We did start out as planned - and loved the Air & Space Museum. There was so much to see there.
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| Orville and Wilbur's plane |
I love history and as a former employee of a major airline, I loved seeing the aircraft.
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| Amelia Earhart's plane |
We had to laugh at the requirements to be a flights attendance, including "just below Hollywood standard."
We then crossed the mall to the Museum of Natural History.
We took a little break for some fine dining.
I tried to get a picture of the kids jumping.
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| Jalen up, Baylie down |
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| Baylie up, Jalen down |
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| On the steps of the Museum of Natural History |
I asked David to get a picture of the kids by the big elephant in the entrance. This is why I don't usually ask him to take pictures.
Dinosaurs, dinosaurs and more dinosaurs.
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| Wholly Mammoth |
My kids were fascinated by the gems and minerals. I was surprised to see how interested they were.
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| Hope Diamond |
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| Add caption |
We went next door to the Museum of American History. We only looked at the first ladies' dresses and china. I loved it. Afterwards, we decided to just want to the World War II monument since we hadn't seen that one the last time we were in DC. On the way, the kids and David persecuted some poor little birds. They went crazy and other people even stopped to watch them.
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| Can you see Baylie? |
The World War II museum is really beautiful and impressive.
Then, since we were in sight of the Lincoln Memorial, we decided to walk there as well. It was even bigger than I remembered.
Had we been thinking clearly, at that point we would have ridden the subway back to our car. Instead, we decided to walk back.
My favorite memorial is the Korean War Memorial. There is something so emotional and life like about these sculptures in motion.
The kids were so tired on the way back. At one point, Baylie tried to carry Jalen.
David decided to pitch in and help.
The kids were such great sports. They ended up walking for about 5 1/2 hours. They only had a peanut butter sandwich and some cookies all day, but they never complained.
We took a little break to hang out in a tree on the way back to the car.
It was really a great day and I was glad the kids got to see so much more than we thought they would. I love visiting DC. I've always taken pride in the fact that it is our nation's capital. And I love the fact that once you're there, everything is free.
P.S. Thanks to everyone that gave us transportation advice. We ended up parking in a garage close to the Air & Space Museum and walking everywhere. Other than the last walk back to the car, we didn't need to ride the Metro.
