Washington D.C.

"This past January Sam had a whole week of learning about dinosaurs in his pre-k class!  He loved it so much that we told him we would take him to the dinosaur museum (AKA Natural History Smithsonian) this summer!  Clearly that was before we knew I would be 25 weeks pregnant!  Last Monday and Tuesday we headed up to DC and had such a great family trip!  On Monday the boys golfed and Charley and I headed to Tyson's Corner to find the American Girl Store!  She loved it!  She didn't even know you could buy things so we just played with the models and watched the dolls at the "salon" and managed to leave the store without spending a dime!  It was a win/win for all!  

 That night we watched a movie in our hotel, went to eat dinner, shopped, and went to the hotel swimming pool!  Chris and I kept saying how much fun we were having on our little family trip!  The kids were great the whole time and then they crashed....

 Washington Monument!

 We made it to the dinosaurs!

 Sam and Charley loved the dinosaurs bones and the animals the most!  Chris and I both loved the "best of" photograph exhibit!  After a quick snack we were off to the Air and Space Museum!...action shot...

After the Air and Space we rode the metro (we parked in Vienna and rode the metro in) over to the National Zoo!  You will notice no zoo pictures mainly because it was 100 degrees and I'm 25 weeks pregnant and I was in survival mode!  We had a great time at the zoo (except the walk back up the hill) !   We tried to avoid the rush hour on the metro but we got stuck right in the smack dab of it!  Poor Charley was asleep in the stroller the entire time but we were literally packed in like sardines!  I lost count of the number of people who at some point were literally resting on my pregnant stomach.  Let's just say I'm a small town girl and COULD NEVER live in a city with that kind of commute!  

We really had a great time on our DC adventure (minus the metro during rush hour)!  We keep reminding Sam and Charley how lucky they are to have both parents off for 9 weeks of the summer!  We are so grateful for our family time together!  (if anyone wants to know how I survive soccer season...it's these 9 weeks!) 

We also tried to do a "budget" friendly trip!  I packed a breakfast and a lunch for the ride up and Chris got his golf round for super cheap off a website!  We only paid for our metro tickets on Tuesday (28 dollars) both museums and the zoo were free!  I also packed all of our snacks and drinks for Tuesday so we only paid for lunch in DC!  We splurged a little on the hotel room but it came with a super legit free breakfast!