Return to January Pt 1: Introduction and Sightseeing

Introduction

If you will remember, we spent two weeks in January visiting the grandparents T in the frozen land of Virginia. Finally I'm going to tell a bit about that trip for those that may care.

The first and biggest obstacle to our trip, aside from the actual transportation and the horror of flight with five children and grumpy co-passengers, was a question of wardrobe. Except for our recent foray into the world of snow, it is rare for us to need more than a warmish hoody and some long sleeve t-shirts for winter here in the desert. That is not the case at Grandma T's house. January in Virginia regularly dips well below the serious need for winter coats and hats threshold and this January was even colder as you may have heard due to a certain outdoor civic event held on January 20th in our Nation's Capitol. . . . Luckily, I was able to find some $19 coats online and some exciting yet cheap gloves and hats at Target, so all winter gear was appropriately gathered before we ventured to the land of cold.

I collected together enough long sleeve shirts, hoodies, sweaters and flannel pajamas to last us for our trip and encountered the second obstacle to our trip: packing for six people for 14 days (DH came only at the end and he was responsible for packing for himself and he left without a coat of any kind, so clearly he needed help!). My room was a sea of clean clothes, chargers, shoes, coats and other stuff for days before our actual departure. Somehow we fit it into suitcases, weighed them and redistributed them until no single suitcase weighed more than the dreaded 50 lbs and then we got up very very early and made our way to the airport: me, Grandpa T (without whom we never would have made it) and the five kidlets.

The trip itself can be divided into two categories: sightseeing and fun with cousins. Since my parents live close to DC, we made several trips in to town to visit Smithsonian Museums.

Sightseeing
One day Grandpa decided we would drive into town and he would work his amazing parking karma and find a parking spot while I got everyone acclimated to the American History Museum and he would join us in the lobby and we would enjoy the museum. Apparently his parking karma wasn't working too well that day as 1 1/2 hours later, he found a spot. Thankfully, the recently retooled museum has this cool kid-oriented history of invention section that is self-contained so we could explore without losing anyone until Grandpa could get to us:




Once joined by Grandpa, we could explore the more expansive parts of the museum. The American History was always my favorite as a kid, but its retooled, extra kid friendliness exceeded all my expectations and blew my children's minds, just a bit. CE mentioned at the end of the day when we had barely scratched the surface: "Mom, we could stay here forever and never see it all!"
Some of my favorite pix from that museum:

One of the many times Bam tried to climb into an exhibit. Hopefully he will always embrace learning with this much gusto!
The big kids explore a mid-century train station.

On other days, we went to other museums. One day, I went into see some bugs with Grandma and Grandpa and the little kids and Aunt Tiffie, Monica and Uncle Kyle took the big kids to the spy museum.

Nothing like a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach to give you the willies!

One day, we even went into the Air and Space Museum with Grandma on the metro. The kids reacted to the mass transit experience like it was its own attraction. I'm sure we amused and annoyed our fair share of commuters.

Merely eating some snacks in the cafeteria is an exciting event for us:


I love how my children experience museums, most of the time. Their minds are so open to new knowledge (What can you expect from the children of geeks?) and they always have something that they're dying to know. For that reason, I wish we had unlimited time and access to these amazing museums. Growing up, I guess I just assumed that everyone grew up with such things near them. Now I know. And CE is right, you can never see it all. But what fun we had trying! Next installment: Fun with cousins