saturday outing part 1: national mall + museums

We started our day downtown. Abi joined us for the day which made Amelia very happy. The kids loved playing on the grass on the Mall as we walked to the National Gallery of Art. The Andrew Wyeth exhibit was fantastic. His paintings of windows were beautiful. We got a quick look at the Degas/Cassatt exhibit. But then I remembered that people in D.C. hate children. How dare we bring five! children into an art museum. Despite their good behavior, we still got lots of dirty looks. Apparently art museums are like funeral homes?

 Too bright!

 This new, lush grass on the mall was just asking for cartwheels.

The I. M. Pei pyramids at the National Gallery are always fun.

 Highlight for the kids. The moving walkway between the East and West buildings.

 These old phone booths next to the restrooms were also a big hit.

 We walked past the National Museum of the American Indian.

Burgers and shakes at Good Stuff for lunch. Yum!

Washington Monument in lights!

The Washington Monument is completely covered in scaffolding right now while they repair damage done during the earthquake a few years ago. They decided to make it a bit prettier at night by putting lights on the scaffolding. A few weeks ago they had a special lighting ceremony to celebrate the new lights so we headed down to the Mall to see it all lit up. It was a beautiful summer evening. I love heading into DC at night...a quick 15 minute drive, easy parking, no mosquitoes, cooler weather, and lots of space to run and play. We found a grassy spot on the Mall and waited for the lights to come on. The kids had so much fun just running around in the grass, chasing each other and doing somersaults. The lights were definitely secondary to all the fun they were creating on their own. Fireflies appeared and then the lights finally came on. It was not as dramatic as we thought since it was still pretty light out. But as it got darker, the lights appeared brighter. It's fun to see something different in the DC cityscape/monumentscape at night.

We were anticipating the lights to come on all at once. But they turned on slowly, starting at the bottom.