Smithsonian

Can I just say that I love the Holiday Inn?  Seriously.  They have great rooms.  Great size.  Comfortable beds.  Complimentary breakfast.  AND reasonable rates.  And you can pretty much find one in every city you visit.  I am definitely converted to the Holiday Inn.  Plus, my kids like staying in a hotel better than a motel.  I asked them why and they said, "Because then there's a cool lobby that you can walk through before you go to your room!"  It's the little things I guess.

After our wonderful night's sleep at the Holiday Inn we got ready and headed to the Metro to ride downtown for a Smithsonian day.  Logan loved the Metro.  And it made it WAY easier to get downtown than driving.

It was CRAZY hot again today, and as we left the hotel the concierge told us that not all the museums have air conditioning.  We crossed our fingers that the ones we were going to did!

First stop:  The Smithsonian Castle.  It's basically like an introductory to all the museums with maps and information and a few artifacts that you'll find in all of the other museums.  It was cool for a brief visit.

Then we headed across the mall to the Museum of Natural History.  We had watched "Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian" before we left, so the kids were super pumped.  "I have come BACK to LIFE!" was quoted frequently.  By all of us.

We spent over 6-hours there.  We finally had to cut ourselves loose so we could see another museum before they closed.

Lucy loved the butterfly sanctuary.

Max loved the exhibit dedicated to Titanoboa.  Giant Snake.  Cool.

Logan enjoyed the bug section.

Next, we headed to the Air and Space Museum, which I was much more excited about than the kids.  I think they were hopeful that there would be more planes and spaceships for climbing in and riding in, rather than just looking at.  

As you can tell, I insist on taking pictures whenever we go somewhere...and Max insists that if he's going to be in the pictures, he sure's not gonna like it.  That's why there are a serious lack of smiles on his part.  Lucy's always up for a picture...and Logan pretty much does whatever Max does.  

Logan and I took a breather and sat in a quiet spot for him to have a nap while Tyler and the kids kept exploring.

We finished around 5:00pm and decided to head back to the Metro, in case it was going to be crowded from the home rush.  It wasn't too bad.

Back at the hotel the kids and I went swimming again and Tyler got some work done.  Pizza for dinner and Happy Feet 2 in the hotel and we were all ready for bed.

Tomorrow we have to check out of this hotel and move to the one that Tyler's conference is in.  We'll be spending more time just hanging in the hotel now while Tyler has meetings.  In theory the kids and I could do stuff while he's in meetings, but I'm not confident enough to drive in DC to make that happen.  The kids are happy to have some quiet days too.  Me too!

The National Mall

We made it to DC.  Barely!  Not literally, but between 38 degrees, no A/C and Max puking in the van on the way...I wasn't sure how this day was going to turn out.  Fortunately I had tossed Max a garbage bag just moments before he puked...so there was very little clean-up.  And he instantly fell asleep afterwards, so the rest of the trip was pretty quiet.

We headed straight to our hotel, checked in, and while Logan had a nap, the kids and I had a dip in the pool.  Lucy made some bad choices and ended up not being allowed in the pool, but she hung around pool-side and took pictures.

Logan and Tyler joined us when Logan woke up.

Once we were sufficiently cooled off, we went and got changed, grabbed some dinner and decided to head downtown to check out the National Mall and scout out where we would be going the next day.

I almost regretted this choice as we became very familiar and not very friendly with DC traffic.  Seriously it's crazy down there!  It basically looks like a bowl of spaghetti and you're supposed to know what road to take.  Good luck!  We got lost a number of times, but finally made it.  Most of the museums were already closed, but we took the opportunity to walk around a bit and check them out.

Here's our first glimpse of the Capitol Building from the spaghetti traffic.  We could see it, but just couldn't get to it!

The Museum of Natural History.

The Smithsonian Castle.

And then we decided to go and see the Washington Monument.

It was now 7:30pm and still 38 degrees outside.  Crazy muggy.

The monument is huge.  Like, indescribable.  Look at how tiny my children are compared to this huge monument!

We got a glimpse of the White House, but didn't venture there.

Then we crossed the street to the WWII memorial and checked that out for a while.  It was cooler by the water, so it was a nice place to be.  Although very difficult to keep 3 children from wading in some beautiful water.

Seriously, this place is enormous.  We decided to make the 1-mile trek to go and see the Lincoln Memorial, because we assumed it would be better to do in the evening, rather than the heat of the day tomorrow.  The reflecting pool was under construction, which was a disappointment, but we did see fireflies in the grass beside us.

It looked like the grass was catching light from the crazy heat.

Lincoln!  We finally made it!  The kids were so exhausted and took turns in the stroller.  Most of the time, one of the bigger kids would sit in the stroller with Logan on their lap, and Tyler would give a shoulder ride to the other.

The memorial was crazy busy, but we managed to get a few pictures.  Logan didn't want to take his eyes off that big guy.

Then the kids slid down the memorial on the way back down.

We filled up our water bottles at a water fountain and then made the 1-mile trek back to our van.  Logan literally ran the whole way.  The path is a common place for people to run and he would try to race every person that went by.  They got a pretty good kick out of him.

His face was red and puffy when we got back to the van.  Hopefully that equates to a good night's sleep!

Chocolate World

Today we slept in a bit after a super exhausting day yesterday.  Logan was up through the night a bit with gas...I'm guessing because we had dinner at 9pm and that dinner consisted of fries, pizza and hamburgers.  No more 9pm dinners on this trip.

We got ready, checked out of our hotel and headed to Hershey's Chocolate World to do the Chocolate Tour and maybe see a few other cool things.  Tyler and I were checking out the website last night and realized that each activity costs about $10-$15 per person, so we'll have to limit the activities today.

First we went on the tour (which was free..yay!) and learnt about how Milton Hershey started and we got to ride on a chocolate car through a fake factory to see how the chocolate and candies are made.

They gave us a sample of some new candy called Hershey Pieces that were quite good.  It was an almond, dipped in chocolate with a candy coating (kind of like M&M's).  They came in Dark, Milk and White Chocolate.

Next we went into the Chocolate Store which was about the size of Superstore, but with only Hershey products for sale.  It was crazy!

Then we decided our one paid activity for the day would be to create our own chocolate bars.

We got geared up in our aprons and hair-nets.  Tyler even had to wear a beard-net.

You got to choose between Milk, Dark and White Chocolate for the base.

The you chose what ingredients went inside.  Choices included: Pretzel pieces, butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, almonds, pop rocks, and raspberries.

Then your chocolate bar would be coated in milk-chocolate and you had the choice of sprinkles, or no sprinkles.

We even got to design our candy bar wrappers.

It was pretty cool.  Can't wait to sample.

Lucy's creation was milk chocolate with butterscotch chips

Max's creation was white chocolate with chocolate chips and sprinkles

Logan's creation was milk chocolate with pretzel pieces and sprinkles

And Tyler and I had milk chocolate, butterscotch chips and almonds.

What a great day at Hershey.  It was just after lunch when we headed out, so we picked up some groceries at the local supermarket and got on the road to go to Washington DC.