D.C. Trip - Day 5

Our extended stay hotel Chase Suite Hotels, gave us a welcome good night's sleep. It had a door that divided the kid's space from ours that allowed us to put kids to bed and still plan the next days activities. The king size bed probably had something to do with it too. The breakfast buffet got us off to a great start in the morning as well. They also had apples at the front desk that made a morning snack for the kids effortless.
If you haven't had a chance to, you should take your kids on a major city's mass transit system like the Washington D.C. Metro. That is exactly what we did Friday morning. It was a great experience for our kids considering they hadn't ridden a train in a long time, let alone one that went underground. It also gave them a good chance to interact with people who would strike up conversations with them.
We boarded the train at the Shady Grove Metro Station in Maryland and got off at Metro Center in order to walk through some of the Historical Downtown of Washington D.C.
We went to The Castle first to gather general information regarding all of the National Mall museums. This is the main information hub, but there are also a few exhibits in the building. If you have time, I recommend wandering around a bit. This is a very beautiful building inside and out. It was also the visit that started our security checkpoint educational training. If you are heading to the museums in D.C., prepare to wait in some security lines.
Next stop - The National Museum of Natural History. We headed to see the gems and minerals first, no surprise since our oldest is a girl who likes everything sparkly. I think my son was willing to go along because he was looking to match the gems that he mined in North Carolina.
We decided just to eat in the Museum Café to keep things simple when it came to preparing for the day. The food was actually much better tasting than we anticipated. It was little expensive, but we expected that after talking to some friends who had recently visited The Museum of Natural History. There were many options, so the kids were happy and the parents were less stressed. (Chicken fingers for child #1, Pepperoni Pizza for child #2, Sandwich for mom and Chili Dog for dad. Toddler enjoyed trying a bit of everything before settling on child #1's french fries.)We let the kids call the shots when it came to deciding what to do for that day. They tempted danger in the prehistoric wing. They did investigative research on Elephants (special information booths about elephants spread throughout the museum). They also started trying to figure out what things could have been in the movie Night at the Museum 2. This particular activity continued during our consequent visits to all of the Smithsonian Museums.
Our goal was to keep the first day easy going. We decided to just visit one museum and then to head back to Rockville, MD. The Metro ride back to our car was a little less exciting than the trip into D.C., but we all really liked the idea of just sitting in an air conditioned train car for a while to recover.
We tried a local chain restaurant for dinner, Chicken Out Rotisserie. Our decision was based on deal information that we found at mykidseatfree.com. It was a family style roast chicken place that served a meal much like Thanksgiving dinner. My kids weren’t all that excited about it, ironic isn't it considering we went there based on the idea that kids eat free. I guess our kids would have been free anyway. It must be stated that my kids are very picky eaters and that must be considered when using their personal opinions about food as guidelines.
After dinner we retired to the hotel for the night. We made sleeping arrangements, pulled out the hide-a-bed and then all crashed in front of the T.V. and Phineas and Ferb for an hour before turning out lights for the night. You might ask, "Aren't you a little old to be watching Phineas and Ferb considering you had your own T.V., away from the kids?" Why yes, yes we are.
What the toddler enjoyed: Looking for monkeys, looking for bronze statues, and beating bronze statues of monkeys. She also enjoyed a little pole dancing.