Field trip to Smithsonian: Natural History Museum

Living in the concrete jungle has it's benefits. We live fairly close to Washington DC, which means we have museums and all sorts of historic artifacts within an arms reach, or a half hour drive. My parents were here for a bit visiting from the West Coast.  This was a perfect time to embark on a field trip because 1. I had help and 2. they had never been to DC, so playing tour guide was a must!  As the kids and I have already seen DC's sights, we were happy to just spend the day at the museum!  The Smithsonian Institution is made up of many different museums and the zoo.  Some are just a quick walk through for us, but the Natural History Museum has more than enough information for one kiddo's brain to take in all in a day! We didn't even go through all of the exhibits because there were so many things to see!  When you first enter the museum you see this big guy!

We took a right and headed over to the fossil section. You could probably spend an entire day in this exhibit alone.  There are all kinds of fossils. We got to see the T-Rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Allosaurus.  There are plant, sea creature, and bug fossils.  It was little boy heaven in the dinosaur room.

With Stegosaurus  

With Allosaurus

Getting eaten by T-rex

This museum, as you can imagine, is very crowded.  Much of our time was spent trying to just get through.  So after this we took a break and went outside to have lunch.  

Drinking hot chocolate! It was so cold.

We headed back in and went to see the animal part of the museum.  This was the kids' favorite part.  It was like visiting the zoo...only these animals weren't alive!

This was my favorite guy

He's a little fox!  

They had quite a few of the animals doing things as they would be in the wild.  On the opposite side was a giraffe bending down to drink water.  That guys poor joints!  

After seeing all the animals we took a quick trip upstairs to look at the JEWELS!  I can't believe I didn't get a picture. This is where they store the "Heart of the Ocean" from the movie Titanic.  There are all sorts of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies worn by famous royalty through the centuries.  This exhibit continues into how each different rock and gem is formed. Heaven for a geologist! 

We took a peek into the Evolution exhibit but it really does go against everything we believe in so we didn't spend any time there. 

Upon leaving the museum we heard some drumming!  There were a couple of gentleman outside playing the drums with buckets.  It was totally awesome.  The kids were dancing and donated some change they had brought with them.  Here's a picture of Tornado K dancing. 

The capitol building (often mistaken for the White House)  was just a quick walk down the mall so we went that-a-way.  

We noticed this statue was missing his sword!

Next, we headed on over to the White House, which was about a mile walk.  

Everyone was pretty pooped by this point.  It was only about 42 degrees outside, we didn't want to be stuck outside once the sun went down so we headed back.

On the walk back to the car we saw the Washington Monument. It's under construction, so that's why all the bars are around it!

You can't be an American and leave DC without feeling super patriotic.  Truth. 

Here's Tornado K taking a break at one of the many stoplights!  Those little legs sure worked hard this day!

Do you have any favorite field trip places?