Washington, DC, Part 1

We crammed quite a bit into 3 days in DC. Our budget is tight right now, so we chose to visit several of the Smithsonian museums and the Jefferson Memorial, which we hadn't walked through yet. I love that in DC there are so many free activities and sites (we even avoided parking fees for most of our outings). We took loads of photos, so I'm going to break them up into several blog posts over the next few days.

First off, we visited the National Building Museum with Aunt Mari, Uncle ACE, & cousin Des. The kids' "building zone" has a play house, giant soft Legos, plush tools, a reading corner, and more. There was a huge craft fair going on that took up space in the museum where the older kids can usually actually build a life-size arch. Mari & I walked through the Richard Ross photography exhibit and on our way out we did a quick walk through of the DC exhibit.

Caroline trying encourage fellow builder, Des to build...something, anything!

Caroline, showing cousin Des how to build a tower...to be knocked down, of course.

Grace & Caroline played dress-up....of course.

Wesley, peaking out of the window of the playhouse...

Wesley spent most of his time with this yellow truck. When he was done playing around he begged to leave....with the truck.

Between the indoor columns with intricate detailing at the top, and the carved trim around the perimeter of the building, the architecture of this museum is beautiful.

From there we headed over to the Tidal Basin to see the Jefferson Memorial and the cherry blossoms.

I love this picture of Wesley...this was a signature Wesley "No, I will not hold your hand" move, and the blur captures the photographer (moi) trying to keep up.

You can read all of the Thomas Jefferson quotes found at the Jefferson Memorial HERE.

Two handsomes...

Grace & Caroline had Wayne sandwiched for much of the walk back to the car.

Gotta love being a daddy!

...and I got to see some cherry blossoms. For a gorgeous photos of the cherry blossoms in full bloom during the DC cherry blossom festival, check out my friend, Macy's photographs HERE. We {heart} DC!