Sunday, April 25, 2010

An All-American Day

Ever since Clayton saw the White House on Martha Speaks, he's been asking to go see it. Because we're as close as we'll ever be, we decided to go ahead and take him. He was a little disappointed we couldn't go in, but did think the men walking around on top were really cool.

We couldn't miss having our picture taken with the Washington Memorial in the background.

While seeing the national landmarks was interesting, our real reason for going into town was to visit the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaur exhibits. Clayton even got to touch a dinosaur leg bone. Clayton's favorite cartoon is Dinosaur Train. He watches it soaking up more dinosaur information than I ever thought I'd know. So getting to see dinosaur skeletons, fossilized eggs and dioramas was more than Clayton could ask for.

He was particularly interested in this mosasaur skeleton because it lived in the Cretaceous ocean and he had never heard of one before.

While we were looking at this mural behind the mosasaur skeleton, Clayton asked me what it was that it was eating. I told him, "I sure don't know. It looks like a shrimp or some type of shellfish." He replied, "I think it's an ammonite." So we read the entire board below and sure enough, the mosasaurs' favorite food was ammonites. Thank you, Dinosaur Train!

The museum also has this great place called "The Discovery Room." The boys were able to touch and explore everything from fossils to...

...sea shells to...

...alligator heads to...

...a replica of the human skeleton to...

...magnifying glasses to... (Levi particularly loved carrying his around to look at EVERYTHING!)

...to birds and a hundred other things we didn't have time to explore. It was great. They loved it and could have spent all day in there. It started to get a little crowded, so we left.

Once we had seen all the bones we could see, we had a picnic lunch on the Mall. The boys spent a good chunk of time chasing pigeons which lead them right over to the carousel.

Once it got going they both really enjoyed their ride. And Cyle did, too!

Before we left, they each were able to throw a penny in the fountain outside the Reagan Building. Levi wanted to retrieve his and throw it in again...

To finish up our All-American Day, we stopped for supper at Five Guys where we enjoyed the most delicious hamburgers and hot dogs. And since we were passing through Warrenton, Cyle couldn't resist stopping at Carousel for ice cream. We had a great family day full of memories!

1 comment:

Angie said...

What a FUN ALL AMERICAN DAY! Sounds like/looks like it couldn't have been better!! You guys look great.