Friday Adventures: National Mall

I know it has been a long time since I have updated the blog. I have a lot to add from the last two months. We have had many fun adventures, but the time required to accomplish the adventure sucked up my blogging time. Hopefully I will be caught up by Thanksgiving.

Today after school I took the boys to the National Mall. Our goal was to take pictures of the museums and other "attractions." We will then create our own map of the Mall which we will use in deciding which museums to visit.

Upon arrival, I gathered the boys for our first picture - The Capitol!


I often take more than one shot in order to ensure I end up with a good picture (which still doesn't always happen). For my second shot John's camera came out.


And here is the result!


I had trouble getting the boys to move on because of the ducks. John easily took 15 pictures just like this one!

From here we headed over to the Botanical Gardens for a picture. No sooner than we arrived did James announce he needed to go to the bathroom. Thank goodness for all of the free museums! We walked right in, saw some neat plants, I made lots of promises about how we would be coming back, and finally we found the bathrooms!

By the time we got out of the Botanical Gardens the sun was thinking about setting. Note that Joseph is more interested in James than me. James and John kept climbing on the rim of the reflecting pool. I had images of taking wet children home. Worst thing that happened was that James put his hand in duck poop. Yuck!


On the way to the National Gallery of Art the boys decided to sword fight. Yeesh!


However, they gave me a VERY cute picture!


Can you see all of us in this picture? My head is obscured by the large white dot in the middle.


Joseph had a great time with his crazy brothers!


This is as close as we came to the Washington Monument. It was beginning to get dark and I didn't think any of us had it in us to trek the additional two blocks to the base. Isn't the monument beautiful in the sunset?


I think the Capitol looks pretty cool too...


James and Joseph had a great time playing around while John and I tried to figure out what was next.


The boys had all kinds of questions about the Smithsonian Castle. Who built it? Is it real? Was it built in 14 BC? And...it can't be real because it has electricity!