Air and Space

If you're ever looking for a day to visit a normally crowded museum, I strongly recommend New Year's Day. We finally made it down to Air and Space in D.C. to show Nicholas the airplanes, and by its normal standards the museum was virtually deserted . . . meaning there were about the right number of people to actually be able to see everything and do all the hands-on stuff.

Nicholas was so excited about going to see the airplanes that he talked about them on the entire drive down, and after about an hour of driving began to lose patience with us. Were we tricking him? But once we arrived all was forgiven. Because AIRPLANES!

From 2011 January

Nicholas' favorite part was going into the various planes, especially the one you were allowed to pretend to fly. And luckily the line disappeared after his first time and he was able to go back repeatedly.

From 2011 January

From 2011 January

We also got a fun surprise--free tickets to the Sesame Street show in the planetarium! It was really cool. Nicholas loved it and I thought it was pretty cute as well. And it was nice to go to a "movie" aimed at toddlers where no one would mind a little babbling and in fact the characters prompted you to sing along or name the shape.

And then, since the car was parked on the mall, we took a couple quick D.C. photos as we loaded back into the car.

From 2011 January

From 2011 January

And, no, D.C. isn't particularly beautiful in January, but at least we didn't need jackets.

In sum, Nicholas had a lot of fun, but it was an exhausting trip. It is nice to be as close as we are, but the 3-hours round trip of driving and the little boy's need to nap make it something of a stretch as an outing.

But overall a good way to start 2011.