maryland- day 3

You can read about Days 1 & 2 here.

Our 3rd day in Maryland, we decided to get up early and head into town to check out a few of the sights. My SIL had actually never been into DC before so we were all pretty excited about showing her around.

However, it was a straight up cluster downtown. It took us a sweet forever to find a parking place and an even longer time for my parents to find one. Had we been thinking, we would have just parked outside of the city and rode the Metro in, but we clearly weren't thinking.

As soon as we got out of the car, we decided it was beyond too cold to do any of the outside monuments so we scurried on into the Natural History Museum.

My poor Dad had to drive around the city for the longest time looking for parking while the rest of us explored a bit. Then my Mom had to take over for him (before he LOST it) so he got to tour around with us a bit. There are no pictures of all of us together. Stupid city parking.

After getting inside, we quickly mapped out the things we wanted to see. BG is obsessed with animals and such like that, so we headed straight for that display first. She was in hog heaven. Her day was made when she found a pangolin, a creature that most toddlers wouldn't know a thing about, but my child is obsessed with. Blame her Aunt Kiki and her weird book.

A couple hours after we got there, we decided to check out a butterfly exhibit that they had going on. Unfortunately I had to go move the car before that exhibit. So I missed the whole freaking thing.

I'm not bitter at all.

Once I trekked all the way across DC in the cold, by myself, I finally found the group again only to find out that I'd missed my kid's favorite part of the whole day. She LOVED the butterfly house. They got to fly all around them and the lady even got one of the butterflies to land on Baby Hippo. Pretty sure my child thought she was in Heaven.

We decided to leave after the butterfly exhibit. The crowd was out of control and the members of my family that don't do well with crowds (ahem... my brother), were getting a bit antsy to get the heck out of dodge. So we did.

Despite the below freezing (okay, maybe not quite that cold...) temps, BG locked her eyes on the carousel across the mall and had to ride it. So as a treat for how well she did in the museum, we headed on over.

Because she's quick and small, she managed to snag the first spot in line and let us get on and off the ride quickly. It was so, so cold. And unfortunately, we had a VERY long walk back to the car. Blah.

After stopping for dinner on the way back out of the city, we headed on home to call it a night. The museum is definitely a must see, but we'll be picking a non-holiday time of year before we attempt it again.