Done With D.C.

Last night, Bill and I spent some time looking through our touristy guide book and scouring the web looking for a way to spend our last day in Washington without torturing the kids, who are completely done walking through museums. We landed upon a blog from a local D.C. man with children who had a ton of information on the best places to head with kids. His personal favorite was a museum neither Bill nor I would have ever thought of-- The National Building Museum. In fact, I had no idea our nation even had a NBM. We took him at his word and rode over to check out what could possibly be so great about it. We also took the “build a 7 foot arch" challenge that the blog owner said he had never accomplished and wanted photo proof of anyone who did. Our main challenge: height. We were simply all too short to hold onto the arches while someone placed the capstone at the 7 foot mark. We got close though.

The man is a genius (and we owe him a big thank you for the tip). The place was perfect. It appeared that we weren’t the only tourists who had no idea that there was an NBH, and it was empty and clean and lovely. With only a handful of local mamas and nannies visiting with their children, our children felt like they had hit nirvana after the crowds on the mall. The museum had “toolboxes” for the kids to check out that would allow them to explore the museum, but our boys were not interested. Rather, they just wanted to head to the area with all the building blocks, train sets, giant legos and other construction items. They decided together to build a castle and enlisted our help (a few other children came over to take a turn “helping” as well).


After having so much fun there, we took a lunch break and then headed over the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Bill woke up early and headed out solo, while the boys and I slept, to get tickets to this popular tourist stop. We had a wonderful time on the tour learning how they print our paper money and looking at the amount of bills they had recently finished. Not everyone can say they have seen what $32,000,000 looks like in person. It was neither as big nor as impressive as I imagined it to be. It took up surprising little room.


We decided to scope out Union Station to know where to go for our Amtrak ride tomorrow. However, it was only 3:30 when we had accomplished all of the above and we had run out of things to do. The only thing left was to head to the American History Museum to kill some time before dinner. This ended up being a lovely stop that included a few hands on activities for the kids. Highlights: Seeing C3P0, Kermit, the Ruby Slippers, playing in the science center, building ramps for marbles out of spoons and spatulas, wind surfing and building with pattern blocks against an angled mirror to create beautiful designs.

Our day rounded out with me packing while the boys watched National Treasure. Highlight of the day: Romney saying “My teacher was right. Washington D.C. is really fun and cool.” That was the best!