Let's go on an Adventure: Washington DC part 3 {Musuems, White House, and delicious eats}

 Welcome back to Adventure Time with Jolie.  ha ha!  Some of you may be on an adventure and others of you, might be sitting back itching to go on an adventure but your kids are in school (totally raising my hand here!).  If you are new here, I am posting an adventure post once a week through the summer (or until I run out of adventures to go on. . . ha ha!). Currently we are hanging out in Washington D.C. and enjoying humidity and thunderstorms.  Of course, this trip took place 3 years ago, but I still remember it like it was last week!  So many amazing memories were made on this trip! 

Let's recap what we've done so far on this trip:  We've visited Ford's Theater, the National Archives, a Nationals Game, The National Zoo, Cathedral, Georgetown, walked the Monument Mall, visited the American History Museum (my favorite!), Mount Vernon, Arlington National Cemetery, and old town Alexandria.   It has been a lot and we aren't even finished yet!  Weston's favorite (and most anticipated thing is coming up and oh, man. . . It's a lot of fun!  

One of the cool things about D.C. is that while it is pricey (but 100 percent worth it) to stay in the city, most of the museums are completely free!  This is great because if you don't do the whole museum and only do a few exhibits, you don't have to feel bad about it! 

Our 5th day in D.C. started out at the Air and Space Museum (which as of me typing this is currently closed but opening something this summer!).  This was super fun and did a great job making it friendly for all ages of kids.  Both Weston and Ethan had fun!  We found Amelia Earhart's plane, walked through a space shuttle, and explored so many different exhibits, many of them hands on (best part of a museum if you want kids to be engaged!). 

 

Ethan even found a astrolabe and a sextant, which Ethan had studied about in his 4th grade class. I love watching them realize that the things they learned about in their history books were actual things and not just stories!  It's so much fun to watch that fascination take place! 

 Our next stop was The National Gallery of Art. . . which was one of my top memories of this trip.  The kids and I had been studying artists in the weeks leading up to our trip and it was really exciting to get to see the actual pieces of the artists they learned about, in our lessons or in their school lessons.

We didn't get through all the Gallery. . . that may have taken all day.  We did get to see some Rembrandt, Rapheal, Giotto, Van Gogh, Picasso, Caulder, and Kandinsky. . . plus a bunch of others!  

Outside the gallery, they have some pretty great sculptures and we found an Alexander Caulder (I love him. . . and we seem to always happen upon his sculptures on our adventures.  Side Note:  There's one in my own town and I just realized it a few months ago!  My heart was so happy!). 

Next up was the Natural History Museum.  This place was absolutely breathtaking!  It's worth it just to walk in and look up!  It was built with such intention on beauty! We saw exhibits of animals dinosaurs, and gemstones (including the Hope Diamond!). 

After this, we were ready for a relaxing evening, but we also learned that laundry in our hotel was out of order after trodding around in the rain and humidty our clothes were wet and sweaty and not really drying.  So, we headed to a gap and found some clothes to hold us over til we got home.  We also hit up a Panera on the way back to our hotel for some quick food, before heading back to our hotel for showers and some tv watching. 

The next morning, was the day that Weston had been looking forward to all week!  He was so fascinated with the White House that he even made us buy a What Was the White House earlier in the week when we visited the National Archives (they had the best gift shop!).  Our tour was the first tour of the day (7:30am!!!), so we had to be up before 6, to walk over.  Weston decided that he would wake up every couple of hours to see if it was time to go. . . he was not going to miss this adventure!  Our tour was fabulous and wasn't horribly long.  We soaked in the stories of laundry in the ballroom and other funny things that happened while presidents and their families lived there.  From there, we headed across the street to the official National Park visitor's center so Weston could work on his book and get his badge to add to his collection.  By then, we were hungry! So we found a local coffee shop, called Zeke's, and we went in for coffee and pastries.  It was wonderful!

As we walked back to our hotel, it was starting to rain!  We didn't mind and soaked it all in.  We headed back to our hotel and chilled for a bit.  Then we took an Uber (we used them a lot!) over to the Capitol area.  We found another Good Stuff Eatery, which we ate at in Georgetown.  It was a great burger place. . .so fresh and so good!  Then headed over to our senator's office so we could take our tour of the Capitol.  

The Capitol was so interesting!  We loved the details and the beauty of it, but also the history of the building.  The interns did such a great job sharing stories that even the boys were intrigued the whole time! From there, we headed to the Superior Court building. 

We didn't spend a ton of time here.  We just walked up all those steps and went in and saw some of the courtrooms and took advantage of the bathrooms.  I still can't get over how little we are compared to the enormity of these buildings!  

After that, we walked next door the the Library of Congress.  This place was amazing. . . even though we couldn't walk around the stacks. . . ha ha!  The museum part was so fun!  From old maps to the Guttenberg Bible, Jefferson's personal library and a fun exhibit of baseball history. . . including the women A League of Their Own was based off of!  

 We were hungry and tired, so we headed over to the Wharf to explore and find food.  There were several options, but we couldn't find someplace that was super kid friendly (they were more on the fancy side).  I tried some blue crab (which was on my bucket list!) and it started to pour!  We had really wanted to try the S'more place, but they were closed because. . . weather!  We grabbed donuts at D.C. donuts for our breakfast in the morning and found an Uber and headed "home."  We doordashed food, but the doordasher decided to keep it for himself. . . so dinner took awhile.  We were so hungry when we finally got our food (Jon ended up going to get more and just walked over there!).

Only one more day in Washington D.C. and then we hit up Baltimore and head to Philly.  Let me know if you have any questions down in the comments!  I'd love to hear them! You can also find more over on my Instagram highlights!