Smithsonian Trip

 Way back in the spring, I brought a book home about a little boy who visited a museum and saw dinosaur bones; Elijah instantly started requesting to visit the "dinosaur bones" museum. I have to say that living near DC is a huge museum luxury - there are days and days of museums available for free. Our life is so busy, however, that it has taken until now for us to prioritize a day to head up there. Since everyone has been cooped up for two weeks sick, it was a great chance to get everyone out of the house for the day.

We came home from our New Year's Eve engagement at 9:00 p.m. so that everyone would be able to get up in the morning. We headed out at 8:00 a.m. and took this picture in the museum entrance. 

More and more pictures without Moriah and Alyssa...

  We immediately headed up to the first floor. Since I brought a wagon, mainly to pull the coats around, the kids and I got on the escalator and JD headed off to find the elevator with the wagon. When we got off the escalator, we couldn't find JD and my phone was in my purse in the wagon. The museum was crowded and I was hauling a train of seven kids around in circles looking for JD; turns out that the escalator and elevator didn't even come out in the same room. Somewhere in the confusion, we lost Elijah and once it was pointed out to me with great alarm, I wasn't even sure at what point I had lost him. I parked the girls on the closest bench and told them to not move no matter what. I then stuck the big boys in front of the major doorways to watch both directions and after I ran several laps around the room, I ran to security. There are security guards at every door and I figured if they announced it to each other, no one could carry him out the door without a guard noticing. 

Once I made it to the desk, I was crying and telling them his description. The kind lady told me it was ok, it happens everyday, but I don't cope well with the vision in my head of some scary guy kidnapping any of my children. I ran off to continue my search as she made the announcement of a missing blond boy in a blue track suit. Once I rounded the elephant again, Ben was in the door announcing that he had found him. A lady saw him crying and asked if he was lost and took him to a security guard. I may not enjoy all the taxes we pay, but I do appreciate places with excellent security!

When I ran back to the bench, there were my four little girls lined up and hadn't moved! To relieve the trauma, we headed right in to "under the ocean"; Elijah was long past his fear and engrossed in everything he saw.

Antarctica

 I would only take one quick picture of the kids in front of "the cool stuff" so if someone didn't smile or closed their eyes, oh well, on the blog it goes -

It just seems to be the same teen boy that can't keep his eyes open at picture time -

In the Egytian exhibit

 With great anticipations, we headed to the dinosaur section of the museum and there was a large wall that said, "Exhibit closed - reopens 2019". We told Elijah that we would come back when he was 11!

The good news is that they moved two dinosaur skeletons to the other floor of the museum and one was a T Rex - Elijah was happy.

 We saw lots of fun stuff and Selah and Bella held various bugs - Elijah told the lady, "no thank you, I don't hold bugs."

 All in all, it was a successful day in spite of the rough beginning.