Field Trip

We went on a field trip today to the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History.   Man, I forgot how many cool exhibits it has.  We haven’t been for several years.  While we had seen some of these things before, it was so neat to see them again.  And we added new things to our experience this time around.

We started the day by attending a class with some of our friends from our tutorial, which was  led by some museum workers.  Our oldest son got to go in their lab and examine and learn about bones.  Our girls attended a class on Egyptian artifacts, and while this was going on our youngest toured the mammal exhibit with dad. 

 

Then we all joined up and visited The Butterfly Tunnel.  This was so so fun and brought back memories to me, of the time we went 6 years ago.  My how they have grown since that visit! 

Next up was the mummies since that is what we are studying in history this quarter.  I was truly struck by the fact that there I was standing in front of something that was created thousands of years ago.  It wasn’t a picture or a replica.  It was the real thing.  I never processed this before, but it truly hit me like a ton of bricks. 

We planned to head out for lunch after that, but we just kept running into one more exhibit that we’d stop at.  The dinosaurs, a beautiful art gallery filled with animal/nature pictures that won a National Geographic contest.  The kids LOVED this exhibit!  As did mom and dad.  Then we were really ready to go eat our bagged lunch, and were just going to peek at the Hope Diamond…. which led to a walk down the gemstones, crystals hallway.  SO many beautiful things to see and observe! 

We then ate lunch out by the mall.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day.  I sat eating our sandwiches, looking at the Washington Monument in the background and just truly enjoyed the moment.  Our youngest observed we were all in a circle and thought we should play duck duck goose.  It was the best game of duck duck goose I have ever played.  The big kids embraced it.  We all just laughed and giggled and it was just one of those moments, I wanted to tuck away and savor. 

We decided we had time to visit the National Achieves before heading home.  In all my trips in to DC I’ve never been inside.  It was truly remarkable to stand before the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  I am so thankful for our country.  I am thankful for our government.  I know people whine and complain and facebook about our country, but truthfully, we have it so so good here.  We are so fortunate.  And I know I take that for granted too often.  The younger kids didn’t really appreciate the archives, but my history loving oldest son LOVED it.  And I LOVED his enthusiasm. 

We ended with pumpkin spice lattes and chocolate milk at Starbucks on our way back to the van on a gorgeous fall day. 

Ah, I love field trips.  I Love DC.  I love my family.  I love fall.  Put them all together and you have a pretty remarkable Tuesday.