In the middle of July, Aunt DD organized a family gathering in the heart of our nation's capital, Washington DC. We managed to get everyone together for almost a full week of fun, exploration, and education. One of the first things the kids wanted to do was take the train down to the Mall. Honestly, they didn't care much about where we were going, just that we were going on a train!
They were getting impatient for the train to arrive...
Once we were on it, they had a blast seeing the city pass by and then loved when it went underground! Little did they know what awaited them once we got off the train...
Being DC in July, it was brutally hot and the sun was intense, hence all the squinting. Irene was not happy about having to walk everywhere once we got off the train.
Of course, one of our stops had to be the Air and Space Museum. The kids went crazy for all the planes, rockets, and spacecraft on display. I really should have gotten more pictures, but it was enough just to keep up with this crazy crew!
They found one of the tracks from the crawler that carried the space shuttles to the launch pad and thought it would be a fun bench to rest on.
One of our stops the next day was the National Museum of American History
There were some very interesting (at least to the adults...) exhibits that showed how our country has changed and grown since its inception. The kids particularly liked the exhibits on construction, transportation, and food.
They even got a little hands-on and helped grind some wheat into flour. (It was harder than they thought.)
Afterwards, we went off on our own to the American Art Museum. The kids weren't particularly excited about it going in, but they soon got into the swing of things and began to enjoy comparing the different art styles and picking out pieces they liked.
They also got to make a little modern art of their own with this exhibit that you would press a button and then wait for it to take your picture. On a big screen, it would update every few seconds with the latest picture at the bottom. The hard part was knowing when it would take the picture. If you look closely, you can see some of our kiddos in various poses.
This cat was a favorite of everyone.
We thought that this was an ingenious piece. If you read the plates, it spells out the preamble to the Constitution. All 50 states are represented.
In another section of the museum was the National Portrait Gallery. Despite the kids being a bit tired of all the walking, they perked up as we went through because they discovered that each portrait has a number next to it designating which president it was. The portraits were arranged in such a way that they weren't exactly in order, so they made it a game to find each number. Not only did it make it more fun for them, but they would stop and look at each one, reading the information about the various presidents, so they were finding ways to make learning fun on their own!
They also thought it was really neat to see things like the original of the portrait featured on the dollar bill. Notice how it's actually the mirror image! Some other highlights were the modern presidents, particularly Barack Obama and Donald Trump, because they recognized them from the news or other recent sources.
