DC: Day 3

Our third and final day in DC was by far the busiest, but we saw so much and it was the perfect last day of our mini-vacation. We started off at the National Aquarium. The boys picked the aquarium over the zoo, which was fine with us. The aquarium is quite small and located in a basement, so it's not your typical aquarium. The boys liked the animals, and one benefit is that they opened at 9 am, a whole hour before anything else in DC! Another benefit was that the aquarium was just around the corner from our second stop, the National Museum of American History. This was my favorite museum and we never even made it off the first floor! There was so much to see! The entire first floor was devoted to transportation.
Everyone knows that Henry loves trains. He was so excited to see two huge trains!And then we saw this model train in an old train depot.
There was a whole sea-faring section, which included an area about pirates. The boys play pirates with their daddy all the time.
But Pirate Daddy is the only pirate I know who carries a diaper bag! (If your kids like pirates too, check out How I Became a Pirate and Pirates Don't Change Diapers by Melinda Long.) I guess some pirates do change diapers after all! In one area, there was a video about modern-day fishing for pollock off the coast of Alaska. Will found it absolutely fascinating and watched it at least 5 times!
We got to look down into a ship's engine room.

And then we moved on to cars. This area actually shows a traffic jam.

The boys climbed into an "L" train from Chicago. It was only slightly ironic that they found this fun, seeing as we'd been riding the DC Metro for three days!

Finally we moved on to something I wanted to see! Earlier this year, I read Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. It's the story of one woman's quest to make all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julia Child's kitchen is at the Museum of American History, so we had to see it. The only thing I didn't bring was a stick of butter to pay homage to the queen of French cooking! There was also a section with a train from Santa Cruz, which is just across the bay from where I grew up.
After lunch, it was time to ride the Metro again and get those boys ready for naps. Don't they look worn out here?
After naps and snacks, we headed out again for our last evening in DC. Our plan was to see some more of the city, eat dinner, and then head to the Navy Band concert at 8pm. We took the Metro to the U.S. Navy Memorial. The boys loved exploring the sculptures there.
We didn't really have a plan but thought we might end up back at the National Museum of Natural History, since we didn't see everything there. On the way, we came across the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden. Can you see the giant spider behind us?
The tree sculpture in the background was really beautiful. The red sculpture in the foreground is Cheval Rouge (Red Horse) by Alexander Calder.
There was even a cafe in the garden, which made for the perfect dinner spot. Then it was back to the Museum of Natural History. We spent the entire time in the evolution and mammal halls. Henry was obsessed by this sculpture of a Neanderthal mother and toddler. And our final stop of the evening was the Navy Band Concert at the U.S. Navy Memorial. Will had been looking forward to this concert for weeks; in fact, it was the first thing he told everyone that he was going to do in DC. He was so excited to stay up late to hear the band. I think it was very fitting that our final stop on our Washington DC tour was the band concert. What a perfect finale to our trip!