Plenty to do and see in and around DC

After leaving Easton, we were lucky enough to spend a couple of days with our great friends Paul and Rachael and their two boys, Jules and Elliott. Eli was particularly thrilled, because in addition to the great company, we had more access to toys for boys!

We were also lucky that Paul took a day off work and Jules took a day off daycare, so the four of us jumped on the Metro and headed down to DC and the mall where all of the Smithsonian museum's are located. Our first stop was the Natural History Museum, which has plenty of things to amuse and excite small boys (and larger ones too I must admit). Eli and Jules tried to mimic this taxidermed hippopotamus...and they both loved all of the dinosaur skeletons on display too. After roaring for a while we rested while watching a funny little film all about mammals, where we learnt that to be a mammal you need 1) to have hair, 2) to drink milk, and 3) to have a specialised ear bone inside your head. Whilst we couldn't see inside each other's heads (to confirm the presence of said ear bones), we all agreed that we were almost certainly mammals.

Our next stop was at the Butterfly House, a temporary display inside the Natural History Museum. Here we had the chance to watch, and if we were lucky, be perches for lots of different butterflies. Eli made a pretty good perch!

There were heaps of different butterflies (and a few moths) on display. Here are some of our favourites, including the one on the right - which Eli immediately suggested looked like a snake. I had to look at the photo for a little while to see it myself, but there is no denying the likeness - I'm sure likely butterfly predators would stay well away!








Next (because I am a nerd), I got Eli to pose with his skeleton cousins - human, gorilla, chimpanzee and orangutan. He was also pretty keen to have his photo taken with this egyptian mummy - a bit morbid I know and I don't know what the look on his face is supposed to convey - but he is fascinated by them.

We also took in some sights at the Air and Space Museum, which included looking at some of the equipment from the early moon missions - we even got to touch some moon rock, although it was just a smoothed and well polished slice of rock, not a lumpy piece like I was hoping it might be. We saw the Wright Brothers first plane (at least the first one that successfully managed to fly) and we also climbed aboard a aircraft carrier and watched how the jets take off and land. By this time we were all pretty tired - two museums is a lot for me let alone a couple of little kids - so it was time to hop back on the Metro and head home. Eli and I really liked the underground Metro stations - they are quite old but I still think they look futuristic.

The next day Paul and Rachael both had to work (and the boys had to clock in at their daycare centre), so Eli and I headed off to explore some local sites. We decided to go to Mason Neck State Park, which is on a peninsula which juts out into the Potomac River, just south of Washington DC. We parked at the Visitor Centre and then went for a short hike along the shoreline where we saw plenty of turtles and had a great view of the river.

There were lots of freshwater swampy wetlands and we even saw a beaver dam (no sign of the beaver though).

Here's Eli setting a cracking pace through the forest - I love how this forest looked and I can only imagine how nice it must be during fall when all of the trees drop their leaves.

Back near the Visitor Centre I snapped this quick photo of a male cardinal and then we saw a few gold finches stop in for some seed too. I really like this photo, especially since the gold finch stands out so well on the blue background.

The trip to Mason Neck was great, but all along our walk Eli kept asking if it was afternoon yet. Why, you might ask? Well, he remembered from our last trip (2 years earlier when he was just 3 years old) that Paul and Rachael have a dancing game (it is called Dance Dance Revolution - DDR - I think) where you step on pads in time to the music. He'd mentioned it to Paul and Paul said that we could play it when he got home from work in the afternoon, so Eli needed to know when it was afternoon!

True to his word, Paul arrived home in the afternoon and got DDR up and running. Here are some photos and a short video of Eli strutting his stuff...along with some of Paul, Elliott, Jules and Rachael too. I also had a go and was dismal in comparison to Eli, some I'm glad that there was no photographic evidence - at least not on my camera.

After working up a sweat on the DDR, it was time for some more relaxing activities. Of course Eli wanted to keep dancing, but Paul lured the boys back up stairs with the promise of a surprise. He got Eli and Jules to lie down on the carpet and close their eyes and then he snuck up and dumped hundreds of balls on them. So simple, yet so much fun. They both requested repeats, but after a while Eli was less keen to be involved in the clean up phase, so that put an end to the fun and frivolity. As you can see, we had a great time with our friends in Virginia - thanks again to Paul, Rachael, Jules and Elliott for making our visit so much fun.