Slight sightseeing...

When in Washington DC it's always good to get out to see a few of the sights (even if for an hour). So this week was really baby centric seeing as my nephews are still being counted in the months these days...

BUT we did knock out a couple of museums. One of the most awesome things about DC is the fact that so many of the museums are free. Which makes it great for strollering though since you feel no obligation to stay and get your money's worth.

This week there was the National Building Museum and the Smithsonian American Indian Museum.

The National Building Museum was great in that it has an amazingly large space in the building- lovely for children to stretch their legs. There is also a great playroom (shoes must stay on, adults accompany children, no food... the norm). The playroom has all sorts of blocks, books, toys, and even a story corner. It's a great place from at least 1-8ish.

The Smithsonian American Indian Museum is architecturally fascinating building. There are no right angles in the walls of the building. Now in the interior with things such as elevators there are right angles but they are few and I think try and be far between. The exhibits are very well done and are quite artistic from the display of the arrowheads to peace symbols or guns. I was particularly interested in a necklace that my sister and mom pointed out... it was made of grizzly bear claws. It was a very unique piece that was interesting both from the amazing number and trying to imagine how many grizzly bears it was composed from as well as the aesthetics (it did look in it's own way- beautiful). We didn't have a significant amount of time to wander but we did cover most of the 4h floor as well as some of the 3rd. One can get an interesting amount of information in an hour or spend multiple days delving into each drawer with multiple artifacts and screens and screens of information.

On another note- an intended excursion was to see the Botanical gardens with some train display but the drizzle and the long line convinced us babies would not be excited about the waiting. But the display is on till January 10th so maybe the boys will still be able to view it.

Also we drove by the Einstein memorial a couple of times this week- one of my favorite memorial sculptures in all of DC and well worth the scavenger hunt to find it.

Well tomorrow I am home again to Denver and have a couple weeks for local adventures before the next random location.... Buffalo, WY! Stay tuned ;-)

Wandering DC....

Hanging out in DC today has been very entertaining... I picked up my tickets for the inauguration- Silver!!! Yay... now we've got the figuring out of  the traveling to- let me tell you it won't be Metro after seeing the Metro lines today after the concert. Speaking of which I saw some of the rehearsal stuff as I wandered around the capitol building. I also decided at the last minute to check out the concert at the Lincoln center. Awesome vibe and time and a very happy crowd. I made it through the crowd to almost the WWII memorial. Very cool to hear Obama and Bono and the whole celeb crowd. Nothing like walking the streets with a hundred thousand or more of random people... 

Very cool day and I'm hoping to get my luggage tomorrow. Seriously, I miss  my luggage. Luckily I have a very awesome sister who has allowed me to borrow her hat, scarf, gloves, jacket, etc. etc... so I was nice and bundled up while hiking the National Mall.  Oh and once I finally decided to head out of DC I went to take the Metro and found a station with about 1,000 other people (I heard later it was closed due to too many people) so I ended up heading back from whence I came and walked across the bridge- nothing like walking across a freeway at night to try and find a place to get picked up- the nice local police (by the way the law enforcement has been awesome to ask questions and very friendly) recommended the Iwo Jima memorial... So I walked down the freeway off ramp and crossed the highway and met my sister on the Virginia side.

Tomorrow will be more laid back and then Tuesday will be all sorts of crazy fun again!!! The vibe in the city is great and this was SOOOOOO worth coming!