What I Did on my Christmas Break

Josie was feeling much better today...she had a rough couple of goop-filled days in which she ran a temperature enough to stress g'ma Ohio out long distance.

So, we skipped church to go downtown for one last hurrah. Not only did we miss the Nat'l Christmas tree by one day (we have heretofor had a tradition of going down there), but we also missed the Botanical Garden's wonderful Christmas display--again, by one day. Poor planning on our part. When we were visiting the Museums of Natural History and American History, we should have been trotting ourselves over there. Oh well, next year.
The National Building Museum has THE BEST GIFT SHOP in DC, hands down. It is filled with stuff that you don't see everyday, in every street vendor or touristy shop (although it has plenty of DC stuff, if that's your thing). Plus, if you're a member they give a discount. I missed the big 20% off sale in December--well, I took the kids down there for it, but not only was the indoor play area closed because of some big Christmas party 2 days away (pictured here with Den and the kids), but the kids just about tore apart the store, so we had to leave before I could buy anything.

Very long story of saying that when I got back from the gift shop, Den and the kids had built this. Wow! Guess he really is an engineer.
Apparently there were several on-lookers during the construction and while I was trying to take these photos, kids were enjoying running through the little door. I was actually disappointed Den let Eddie and Josie knock it all down.

Piror to the NBM, we visited the Portrait Gallery which had a joint exhibit of Geo. O'Keefe and Ansel Adams to show the parallels between their work. It was closing today. I really enjoyed the O'Keefe stuff and the Adams stuff was nice--it was neat to see the painted and photogrpahic interpretations of the same thing. Eddie kept asking which was a painting and which was a photo. When I asked him which O'Keefe photo he liked best (out of the two we were in front of), he said he liked the painting he had made at home better.

Josie was pretty intrigued by the lockers--she didn't want to get out to put her coat back on. Funny, because for the most part, she couldn't wait to get out of the exhibit. Guess the flowers and other artwork were too abstract for her taste. Although the G'ma Moses piece and the one next to it seemed to hold her attention for a while. Back to the lockers...It's nice, you pay a quarter, but then you get it back at the end, so it's free, which is nice. Most of the museums seem to have them, which is a miracle in this day and age.

It was a different group of tourists at the 'mall' museums than at the NBM or Portrait Gallery. Not only were the later 2 less crowded, but it was more of an off the beaten path kind of group at these, which explains why the NBM is my favorite DC museum. Take a tour of the building if you can, it's quite interesting.