The Kassebaum Four: Rainy Day in Washington D.C. with the Kids!

So the plan this weekend was to pack an overnight bag an take the kiddos up to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell and have some Cheese Steaks (and maybe even steamed cheeseburgers that I have been hearing they make- mmmm). We were really going for the historical stuff.....

Guess I took too long to plan and Levi fell asleep

And then we checked the weather forecast. If you didn't know, the weather on the East Coast has been in a perpetual state of stink. It went from snow to freezing (well duh, there was snow) to a rainy miserable mess since we've been here. Dan says it wasn't so great before either. Anyways, we didn't want to drive that far with terrible weather so we looked for kid friendly indoor activities. I found the Make Your Mark family day at the National Archives building where kids could learn to write with quill pens and make hats that historical figures wore. Sounded like fun, right? Top it off with some dinosaurs and maybe a little Native America food for lunch. Our day was looking great. We drove up to D.C and parked at our favorite parking garage two blocks from the White House- it's like we are locals now (except for the whole car thing). We walked over to the Archives building and used the military entrance. The other entrance was over an hour wait in the rain :( Poor people.

The home of famous documents!

The rain is fun for some people


Why did I only bring one umbrella?

We took Katie up to the hat area- went through some secret heavy doors to the research area. Katie had several Political Science and History Majors (I mean volunteers) helping her out. She started with Lincoln's hat, then made Jackie Kennedy's hat. She got to pick the fabric on this one. So many beautiful colors and she picked- the CATS! ack! Who even makes cat fabric?

Jackie O?

The last hat she made was a George Washington hat for Levi. He loved it ;) The kid isn't fond of hats, but he did model it well for the group picture.

Washington, Lincoln, and Jackie Kennedy

Next, it was off to make an autograph book so she could collect famous signatures. That was the point of the whole new exhibit. Our handy dandy history major was still with us, helping the whole way.

Decorating her book. He did say she could use as many stickers as she wanted

See the bloody cats?

After thoroughly exhausting the National Archives sticker collection, we headed to another room to try our hand at quill pen writing. I even got in on this one. So much fun. Glad I wasn't the dude who had to write the Constitution. That's a lot of quills to go through. Our Political Science major told us the whole story, but I forgot. We also forgot to take them to actually see the Constitution, but oh well. Katie has already seen it and Levi was more interested in milk and wiggling. Maybe next time.

She really enjoyed quill writing

After the Archives, we thought we would head over to the American Indian Museum for lunch- I hear they have great food and then to the Natural History Museum. Immediately upon exiting the Archives into a downpour, we realized that a hotdog vendor would make en excellent restaurant and that we would go straight to the Museum. I think everyone else in DC had the same idea. It was packed. Dan and I tried to take Katie to the dinosaurs but the massive amount of people overwhelmed us both. We tried to find a quiet area- Q-ryus- where Katie could explore, but we only lasted about 30 minutes total. Most of that time was spent slowly moving around.

Levi thought the Smithsonian was a snooze-fest.

We saw one dinosaur and gave up

Everyone needs a picture with this guy

Levi liked the rattle

And Katie found a microscope.

Mommy and Daddy needed air (and I guess water) so we went back into the rain and headed for our car.

On the way we passed the Old Post Office which advertised free tours. The place looked dead so we figured we would check it out. It was dead. Apparently, Donal Trump bought it to make it into a hotel, so all of the restaurants and cool shops were closed. It was like a ghost town in there. A welcome relief after the Smithsonian. Too bad they were out of Jr. Ranger badges.