Laughter is Music of the Heart

We have been near Washington DC for almost a month now and we have been dying to go and see some sites. We decided to surprise the kids with this adventure for their Valentines gift on Saturday. What a better way to spend Valentines than spending it with those I love most. Since it is still really cold for this born and bred AZ girl we had to find something indoors. We decided to go to some of the many Smithonian museums, but first we had to get there. Since parking is ridiculous downtown we decided to ride the metro, a much better version of the subway. Little did we know that we would still be spending much of our time outside because we had to walk from the metro to the museums. We passed by the Capital and the Washington monument.





I know they are in the distance but they were still cool to see. When the weather warms up a bit we will go and see them up close and personal. We decided on the Museum of Natural History first. We felt like we were in the movie Night At The Museum. I know it wasn't filmed here but all of the animals were so life like and the kids asked of they come to life when everyone goes home. I told them let's not wait around till dark and find out. We saw so many different kind of animals and a lot of reconstructed dinosaur bones. I think their favorite part though was the insect exibit. These were the only living things in the museum. We saw some pretty cool bugs they could even hold an giant grasshopper, but none of them wanted to. My favorite part was the hundreds of butterfly cocoons they had. Here we are standing in front of a gigantic lifesize mammoth. Sorry the picture isn't that great.
We then went to the Air and Space Museum. This is one of the coolest places. I got to go 15 years ago with my sister Roxanne and her family and I loved it then. It is still one of my favorite museums in DC. Nathan loves anything to do with space and airplanes. He just soaked up the history. The kids have studied the wright brothers and their inventions that began air travel and so they loved seeing the displays. We can't wait to go back and see more of our nation's history.