Washington D.C. Part 3

Wednesday morning, our first stop was the Spy Museum, an attraction that all of us were looking forward to. 

They asked to do a spy pose. I don't understand them sometimes 😂

The spy museum was a combination of a traditional museum with exhibits about the history of spying and how spying worked, but it also had a huge interactive part where everyone got a spy identity and had to solve missions throughout the museum. That was a big hit with my kids. They had the best time and were always running from one mission to the next. 

They had one physical challenge for the spies to complete- hanging from this bar for 60 seconds. Elisabeth was the only one in our family to complete it. Her gymnastics is paying off. 

The last mission we had to do was disguise ourselves. Katherine always keeps us laughing! She loved that mission. 

Have I mentioned that screens are like magnets to my kids?

Katherine and Elisabeth played phone in this exhibit for a long time. 

We spent almost three hours at the spy museum, then we grabbed some lunch next door at a food court and hopped on the metro for more afternoon exploring. 

Riding the metro was one of the kids' favorite parts of our trip. 

We walked over to the white house for a picture and spent some time exploring the White House visitor's center. 

Then we walked to the Mall and to the Natural History Museum (which is my least favorite Smithsonian, by the way). We kind of rushed through the museum because no one seemed very interested in the exhibits.  

The dinosaur bones were cool, but I kept thinking that I'd just rather go to a zoo and see live animals rather than stuffed ones everywhere. 

We did enjoy seeing the diamonds, gems, and crystals.

We walked through all the exhibits, and then left when it closed for the day. We walked over to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. I needed a break from fast food, and had a slower paced, enjoyable dinner. Then we walked to the nearest metro station to ride back to our hotel. 

We had a fun experience waiting at the metro station. Katherine met a very sweet lady who was coming home from taking brand new puppies to the vet. She was so nice to our family and let all the kids hold the puppies and then sat next to us on the metro, so Katherine could continue playing with them. Katherine talked about that lady and the puppies for the rest of our trip. It was a special memory for her, for sure. 

Thursday was our Mt. Vernon day. I think this was the attraction I was most looking forward to on our trip. Matt and I visited Alexandria during our last trip but didn't make it out to Mt. Vernon, and I always kind of regretted missing it, so it was a must do on this trip. The trek to Mt. Vernon was a long, that I didn't anticipate. The directions made it seem so easy, take the metro to the station and then hop on a bus to Mt. Vernon. While it was easy, it took forever- like two hours. We had to wait for a metro, then switch lines which was another wait and then wait 30 minutes for the next bus to Mt. Vernon. I tried to keep a good attitude, but we got to Mt. Vernon about an hour after I originally planned. 

Once we got there we grabbed our maps and audio tour devices (a favorite of the kids) and set out exploring. They had fun adventure maps for the kids where they could solve clues to win a prize at the gift shop. My kids eat that stuff up- they were so excited about it. 

I can still vividly remember walking around a bend and seeing for the first time the sprawling grounds and beautiful Mt. Vernon mansion in front of the Potomac. Just breathtakingly beautiful.  

We explored all the outer buildings- slave quarters, green house, blacksmith, smoke shop, ice house, etc. The kids had to listen to everything with their audio devices. They were cute how seriously they took it. 

We saw the animals in the pastures and saw George and Martha Washington's tombs.

Katherine snoozed for a bit while we waited for our mansion tour. 

Touring the Mt. Vernon mansion was a highlight of the trip for me. I guess I didn't expect to really get to see everything (or almost everything) in their house. Old house tours are a favorite of mine, and this one did not disappoint. 

After our tour, we walked over to the restaurant on property for lunch, and then spent some time exploring the George Washington museum. I learned a lot about him that day. That museum was a favorite. We got to watch a movie about his role in the Revolutionary War and his accomplishments at President. He certainly had flaws, but he was a great leader, and I appreciated learning more about him and his style of leadership and all the precedents he set during his life.

Mt. Vernon was my favorite part of our trip. It felt like a mini Williamsburg to me where we got to learn so much at life in the late 1700s. My original plan for our day was to spend the morning at Mt. Vernon and the afternoon in Alexandria, but we ended up spending five hours at Mr. Vernon and didn't feel like we had enough time and the kids didn't have the stamina to handle it, so we rode back to the National Mall to see some monuments. 

Another day, another sleeping Katherine. 

We saw the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam Wall, the MLK Memorial and the FDR Memorial. 

The monuments were not our kids' favorite part (especially the girls), but Matt and I thought it was important for them to see them and learn what they could, so we pushed through with our tired feet and some whining from a certain daughter of ours and experienced them all. 

We got some beautiful sunset views of the monuments while we were walking around. 

It was dark and let when we finished for the day, and to make our evening easier, we told the kids they could have popcorn for dinner. They always think we're the best parents when we do that, when really, we're just tired parents, ha!