our fist visit to Washington DC

so one of the hardest things for us to do was figure out all the fun things to see with Daddy before he went to training, so we took a quick trip to DC because he didn't want to miss the girls' first glimpse of a few special things there (especially in the natural history museum).

grumpy people in front of the capitol building

clearly, there were a few people that didn't want to bother with pictures.. malachi and rayna were both anti-pose for the first while. I also just realized i'm not in a single picture, that was not by design, I just usually carry the camera. I was there too :)

a cool beetle in the national botanical gardens. we also saw some butterflies be released, and we wandered through the jungle

some other things we did, a quick walk through the botanical gardens, and around the outside of the modern art museum, which had plenty of cool sculptures too, though no one's allowed to climb on them... drat ;)

clearly this fountain is a favorite, what's not to love!

I particularly loved the posing here :) it was all natural reaction to me pulling out the camera, none of it was directed!

rayna was especially excited to see the castle, and she wasn't even too sad that it's only tourist information inside

and finally, the natural history museum... we loved the animals (where the kids could all correctly identify such animals as a caracel, sloth, giant squid, and of course all the rest... I can't remember a single one they didn't recognize, though i'm sure there must have been something...). we also enjoyed the water beasties and the dinosaurs, we rushed through the early hominids and into the rocks, gems and minerals... we'll have to go back to see so many more things! you can't do that museum in just a few hours! here's a few pictures that we did manage to take:

the girls in the jaw of a SHARK (great white, in case anyone's curious)

this one I had to include simply because when afton saw it she exclaimed, "look mom! IRON!" and i'm just so proud of her for recognizing a BIF when she sees one! :D

again, as I was pulling out the camera, the girls immediately 'became' stegosauruses to match the one behind them... I love it!

probably rayna's favorite part of the Smithsonian was surprisingly (to me at least), the diamonds! she LOVED the gem and crystal rooms too, but they were so crowded it was hard to take pictures. and naturally the hope diamond was also beloved.

we also took some pictures for grandpa W of some of the girls' favorite solar system pictures, but since they're pictures of pictures, I figured I wouldn't post them here... if you want to see them Grandpa W, let me know and i'll send/email them to you somehow.

and nothing like a snack break as it started to rain before we ran back to the metro... those were amazing peaches by the way.

it was a long day, but a good one! I think everyone was thoroughly tired out, and had a great time. we'll definitely need a few more days to see even half of all we wanted to see, but it was still a wonderful experience, and we made it home just as the storm broke--perfect timing!