Murray Staycation 2010 – Day 4

I am not surprised in the least that Ella fell asleep within 5 minutes of us putting her to bed, and Joe wasn’t too far behind her. It was a busy day!

This morning started off nice and lazy. Ella slept from midnight until 9 am! That’s big news in our house! When she got up we had a nice relaxing breakfast as a family (sausage and eggs), then got ready to start our day. The air quality in DC was supposed to be really bad today (that basically means that with the heat mixed with the pollution, people shouldn’t really be outside actually breathing the air…ahhh, city life). So we explored all of our options and decided that we would spend the day downtown at the Museum of Natural History. Joe had never been and I hadn’t been since I first moved here, so it would be a great family outing.

It was hotter than ‘you know what’ outside, and the Lord was really watching out for us because we found a parking spot right on the mall RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from the museum! If you’ve ever been to DC you know how amazing that is! We were so pumped! We headed inside and straight upstairs to the Butterfly Exhibit. Once again, the Lord was looking out for us because unbeknownst to us, Tuesdays the tickets to the butterfly exhibit are FREE! WOO HOO! Ella loved looking at all the butterflies. A couple of times they flew right past her and tickled her arm or face.

After the butterfly exhibit we toured the rest of the museum. Of course I had to see the Hope Diamond. And of course I had to get a picture of an Alexandrite (Katie Alexander…Alexandrite…get it?), which also happens to be Ella’s birth stone (coincidence? I think NOT).

We decided that since we were already downtown, we’d stroll next door to the Museum of American History and see what they had to offer. First stop…ice cream. Second stop…Julia Childs kitchen. We didn’t see every exhibit, but we hit a few of the highlights we thought Ella would enjoy. Her favorite, by far, was “America on the Move” which displayed several trains and cars. She loved each and every one of the trains. They even have an old subway that simulates a ride. Ella didn’t want to get off of that one. We also hit “Star Spangled Banner” where we sang the National Anthem while looking at the flag that actually inspired the writing of our National Anthem. It was amazing! We finished our trip with a stop at “Treasures of Pop Culture.” I thought there would be more things for Ella here, but unfortunately the only thing she recognized was this little guy.

Ella did NOT want to leave. She cried the whole way home and kept saying that she wanted to go to the store (apparently a museum is very similar to a store when you’re 3 years old) and she wanted to ride the train. Once we got home and turned on Dora she was fine. I’m confident that her little melt-down was because she was tired.

We finished up the day with dinner at our good friend, Beck’s house. Our other good friends, Jessica and Rob, and Beck’s friend Brian, joined us and we had a great time. Ella is really coming out of her shell! She wasn’t shy in the least at dinner. She happily sang for everyone and when we left she told each person goodbye. It was a great day!