Our DC trip: Day One, the National Air and Space Museum

After our trek through the monuments and memorials, we hit one last museum before calling it a day.

While I looked for a changing table, Kendra and Daddy saw a BUNCH of moon rocks.

There was actually a bunch of neat stuff to see here, too.

She seemed to particularly enjoy herself in this museum, I think because of all the big open spaces the building had to accommodate the shuttles and planes and things.  Just because she couldn't read any of it, doesn't mean she didn't want to see EVERYTHING.





One of her particular favorites was a small airplane they had set up so people could "fly" it.

She didn't even seem to mind waiting her turn in line for it because she really loves stairs for some reason--I must be depriving my child with my fancies for our ground-floor apartment.

However, her very, very favorite experience in the whole Smithsonian rather surprised us...though in retrospect it probably shouldn't have.

Not the plane, though she did go through the line to play in it several times.  Not the many interactive stations.  Nope.

It was the stairs.

She really never got sick of it.  Ever.

I wasn't kidding when I said she's obsessed with stairs.

Meanwhile, though Elliot's main activity was making people fall in love with him by making adorable faces.

"I'm a certified professional at adorable faces."

The kids were pretty good for us during the whole trip, but I did come prepared.  Every time we travel I stock up on goodies at the Dollar Store and the Dollar Bins at Target and every time Kendra gets bored and starts causing problems, I pull something out and she's entertained for a while and then we toss it and it's totally worth it.  So when she got sick of walking around, she'd sit down and do this:

Elliot's still too young for that coping mechanism, though, so I have to pack toys carefully.  Luckily, my dad has a pretty awesome knack for that kind of thing so we brought along several things he's sent, including this neat little arch that attaches to a stroller/carseat/whatever you want.

Totally kept him entertained for extended periods on end.  That, my friends, is a WIN for everyone.  He was a real trooper, especially since he literally figured out how to do the little wounded soldier crawl and have all kinds of mobility on Christmas Eve and then spent over 90% of his waking time strapped in a seated position for 3 days.

The walk back to the hotel from there was pretty quick, and we snapped this pic with the Capitol in the background.  Pretty neat how everything is just right on top of each other in the same square mile or so in that city.

And that concludes a very tiring but VERY fun day for us in DC!