Natural History Museum

After dropping Jim at work, the kids and I went into the city to visit the Natural History Museum, arguably our favorite Smithsonian museum. We spent the day wandering through the evolution exhibits, primarily, as the museum was really crowded. We got into the gems exhibit enough to see a few of the large geodes and the Hope Diamond, but turned around because of the crowds. Unfortunately, the Insect Zoo was closed, one of our favorite parts of the museum. All in all, not a terribly successful museum day, but it was fun nonetheless. That's the great part about going so often—short forays are just as fun as longer ones, and there's never any pressure to see or do it all. Combined with the visit to daddy's work, it was a hugely successful day. Well, that's not to mention the three times I got lost while driving in and out of the city. Gawd I hate the GW parkway! I'm so good with everything else and once I get into the city, but we must've seen the Pentagon about 4 times that day! Rather interesting, actually, that we were able to get so close post 9/11—I mean literally in the parking lot right next to the building.

Visiting Daddy at Work

The other day we dropped Jim off at work before heading into the city. His car had died, so he'd taken the truck into work the next day and had an extra vehicle to bring home, so we decided to make a day of it. He is a scientist, so visiting lab is always a whole lot of fun. Emily spent a lot of time in his lab at grad school while I was teaching or doing research, but since leaving campus, we've become very disconnected from his workplace. Adding to that the fact that he's a government researcher adds another layer of security and difficulty to visits, so the kids are always pretty excited when they get to go see daddy's lab.