We drove to the Air and Space Museum because it was raining and we have no umbrellas. Luckily it's Sunday and there is no time limit on parking and you don't have to pay for it. The boys were completely in awe of the museum, especially Matthew. He loves airplanes. We spent a good amount of time in the "How Things Fly" room because there are a lot of interactive exhibits. We also had to go into every airplane and space shuttle that we were allowed to go into. After seeing how astronauts have to live in space, I came to the conclusion that space travel is not in my future. I don't think I would be able to last a day. The boys, on the other hand, were intrigued. They found it fascinating how astronauts go to the bathroom, no big surprise, since they love potty humor. The next museum, The American History Museum, was more for me than the kids. I enjoyed seeing Julia Child's kitchen and the First Ladies Gowns. Jack liked seeing the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner and Tony Hawk's skateboard. Matthew started to go into meltdown mode because he was starving, so we quickly went through the last few exhibits and then headed out to find dinner. Afterwards we walked to the Monuments. The sky didn't look to promising and we started seeing flashes of lightning, but we continued on. They are really beautiful when they are lit up at night. As we were leaving the Lincoln Memorial we got hit with huge raindrops, so we headed back up to the Monument and not a moment too soon because it started to downpour. It wasn't a short storm either. As Jack said, "we get to hang out with Abe Lincoln." Brad finally decided to brave the rain and go retrieve our car, which was parked near the American History Museum (a 15 minute walk). I stayed at the monument with the boys because they were freaked out by the lighting. The Visitor's Center at the Lincoln Memorial closes at 11 p.m., so we sought shelter at the ranger station near where Brad was going to pick us up. The boys were very grateful that Brad went to get the car. When we got back to the hotel we were all exhausted after a long day.
