Our trip to D.C Part 1: The Smithsonian

For our Anniversary this year we wanted to go some where fun, busy and inexpensive. Washington D.C is only about 3 1/2 hours away and with my younger sister's employee discount we were able to book a 3 night stay at a Marriott for just over $100!! Everything in D.C (mostly everything) is free. We stopped there last year on our way home from a camping trip to Gettysburg, and we were able to see the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and Arlington National Cemetery. We wanted to see so much more but were limited on time. This time we saw some of the other things we didn't get to last year!!

We went to The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and spent 4 hours there. I don't even think we saw everything there was to see though.

Exhibits:

(dumb, dumb, want gum gum)

Animals:

They had both stuffed animals and skeletal animals. It was amazing the variety that they had. Ken and I both thought the skeleton exhibit was so cool. They had so many skeletons of so many different animals from frogs to whales.

Some of the skeletons, including an ant eater, and armadillo.

Part of the stuffed animal exhibit, they had so many different animals this one was really neat though. It looked like he was pouncing from a nook in the ceiling.

Insect Zoo:

They had a real Madagascar hissing cockroach out for people to hold. I figured I am the mommy of a little boy so I will eventually have to hold bugs even if I don't want to. So I said YES!! I want Kevin to think he has a cool mommy!! (Even if it creeped me out)

Ken did NOT want to hold it, but I think I made him feel like he had to since I was brave and did it lol!!

Our own little bug watching mommy and daddy being brave.

Gems and Precious Stones:

I love this necklace... So Pretty!!

I HOPE I get this necklace for Christmas lol I'm a dork!! This of course is the gorgeous Hope diamond and it was very big and very beautiful.

Butterfly Garden:

This was by far one of our favorite exhibits. It was amazing!! The butterflies just flew around you and they were so beautiful.

Kevin and I in the butterfly garden. See the little butterfly on the leaf? On a side note, he loves the snuggly!!!

Ken took amazing pictures of the butterflies!!

I have never had a butterfly land on me before it was so cool!! (see my shoulder)

Ken thought it was really cool too.

The Smithsonian was so amazing. There is so much interesting stuff there, I can't wait to go back when Kevin is a little older. I also want to go back and go through more of the museums. I swear you could live in D.C for a year and not see everything there is to see. The best part of the museums... they are free!!