Peeking out into spring

Last Saturday was so balmy that the kids and I decided to go on a field trip. We packed a lunch, the wagon, and a few destination ideas. We ended up at the Museum of Natural History, where the boys first poked around with magnifying glasses in the Discovery Room: 

Here they shake hands with "Mr. Bones."

Then of course we visited the dinosaur room, where Michael looked up and loudly proclaimed, "Mom! That Triceratops is BIG!" Well said.

Afterwards we walked down 14th Street, eating orange slices and listening to the street musicians (the favorite: a drummer with a drum set comprised of some buckets and a grocery cart "cymbal"). We meandered past the Washington Monument 

and across the Mall so that we could take pictures of the Capitol. And that's when the kids started saying, "Aw Mom, we should have gone to Grandma and Grandpa's house instead." I really had wanted to go to another museum, but I could see that no one else was interested, at that moment anyway, in the history of our postal system. So I told them that if they smiled for one last picture, we could go to Grandma and Grandpa's. One, two, three, American cheese!

(When I took this picture, a photographer from Continental Airlines's inflight magazine was photographing me, hoping to use it on a feature on family travel in the capital. About a dozen others also took pictures of us throughout the day. Apparently, we're also a tourist attraction. Nice.)

We ended up going to my family's house for dinner, the movie Where the Wild Things Are, and, when it got too late to drive home, a sleepover. We missed Eric, who was working and studying all day, but we'll catch him next time. It's going to be a beautiful spring.