The National Gallery of Art

 It was cold today but we had to get out of the house and do something interesting! We took a quick trip to the National Gallery of Art in DC. It took us a while to find parking because everyone else had the same idea that we had!  We managed to park right in front of the museum and much to our surprise the museum was still decorated for the holidays!  It was beautiful! 
We got to see some amazing paintings - it's so incredible to be able to see them in person!  Happy day after boxing day!!

Natural History - Part 2

 Back to the Museum of Natural History today!  Great parking again but we made the mistake of visiting in the afternoon instead of the morning. What a difference! It was so crowded but we did get tickets right away to see the butterflies and it was super cool!  We also walked through the early human exhibit - which is Aidan's favorite (but boring for the other kids) - so everyone was pretty tired by the time our parking ran out.
I love that we can make quick trips in to DC. It takes me less time to get to the Museums than it takes me to get Aidan to football practice in Arlington!!

Natural History Museum - Part 1

 Yesterday Declan told me that he wanted to go see gems - he's been playing a lot of MineCraft this summer.  When I told him that there was a place very close by that we could see LOTS of gems - his eyes lit up!  This morning we found parking right in front of the Natural History Museum and spent the morning looking at gems!
It's my favorite part of the museum so I was super excited to be able to spend lots of time there. Usually everyone humors me for about 10 minutes but we spent almost two hours looking at all sorts of rocks and minerals.
On the way out the kids remembered the butterfly exhibit so guess what? We're coming back soon!!

The Library of Congress

This afternoon we took a short trip to the Library of Congress. It's on the other side of Capitol Hill from the Museums and other monuments so it's not one of our usual places.  None of us had ever been there and it was fun to explore together!  The inside of the library is beautiful - one of the most beautiful buildings in DC for sure!  We saw the first ever Spiderman Comic, a small exhibit of Wonderwoman, some very old books from Latin America and we even found the kids reading room!  We missed a bunch of stuff so maybe we can make it back again when we're in the area!

Smithsonian Museum of American History

 So we went to the American History Museum today!  It was just as empty as the Mint was yesterday - this is really the best week of the year in DC!!  This is a HUGE museum and we only saw a very small fraction in the two hours that we could keep focused for!!  It definitely deserves another visit - although there are so many things to do here, I don't know when we will go back!