Trip Day 7: Smithsonians

I'm afraid this travelogue is pretty boring. But I wish I had a blow-by-blow of some of my childhood vacations, so I'm doing this for posterity's sake. :-)

Wednesday was our museum day. We drove into Washington D.C. and hit the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History first.
It was great, especially because it was free. The boys have seen Night At the Museum, and it was fun for them to see various scenes from the movie. Joseph liked the Mammals section. Brigham liked the jewels and meteorite section (my favorite, too). Mosey was a good boy and went along with all of us, although I think he got a little bored.

Brigham wanted to take pictures of all the gems. I gave him my camera and let him take a few. Here's one:


And here he is with a giant amethyst.


Here's Mosey in front of a 3-d image of the molecular structure of a diamond. I think he's super-hero diamond-man maybe?


Here's the famous T-rex skeleton.


Joseph liked the dinosaur bones and actually let me take this picture.


After eating hot dogs and pretzels at a street vendor, we went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. We spent a lot of time at the Natural History Museum, and I wish we would have had a little more time at the Air and Space Museum, as it is pretty cool. They have a new section based on The Elegant Universe, that I especially liked.
There was a paper-airplane demonstration and the participants got to compete in a paper-airplane-throwing contest. My boys got through a few rounds, but Ben made it all the way to the finals, finally getting beat out by a nine-year-old. Oh, the humiliation!



On the way out, we stopped in front of the capitol building. Actually, I think this is the back.


Ben went to get the car, and I took advantage of the photo-op.
Mosey found a bug!


Brigham and Joseph practicing their gargoyle moves.


My handsome boy.


Joseph bought this white tiger at the museum gift shop and wanted me to take a picture of it.


Ben found the van and picked us up and we drove through a very posh area of Washington D.C. up toward the Temple, where we ate McDonalds ice cream cones and walked around the grounds.

There were bats flying all around the Temple, and I tried but failed to get pictures of them. It's a beautiful Temple, obviously.
Then back to the hotel and to bed!