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 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!!

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!

The National Postal Museum

 Today we went to visit the National Postal Museum!!  We went because I had heard great things about it and even though I couldn't imagine that a museum about the mail would be interesting, it totally was!  The kids and I had a great time and it was - by all accounts - the best museum visit yet!  Everything was colorful and very interactive.  There were touch screens or things that opened and closed all over the place.  You could sort mail, throw packages, scan barcodes with scanners and all sorts of other things that the kids thought were amazing!  There was a train, stagecoach, planes and a big truck - all inside the museum!
The big kids really liked the Post Secret exhibit.  They read all of the postcards on display - some were funny and some were very sad but they were all intriguing!
As you can see from the pictures, the museum was very empty.  We had it to ourselves for a while - and then another family showed up about an hour after we got there.  The NERVE!  It was a really great morning - we even got street parking about a half a block away! That is the DC equivalent of a miracle!!