Smithsonians and monuments and the orange line...

...are the things we fill our free time with lately.
There is so much to do that each weekend we find ourselves overwhelmed with the decision of how to spend our time.
North LOVES the metro and when he gets to feeling antsy can now be counted on to say "I JUST want to get on the orange line".
And so we do.
And it takes us fabulous places.
Like the Natural History Museum (arguably North's very favorite of the Smithsonians) with it's giant African elephant guarding the entrance:

and its creatures big and small in the hall of mammals:

or the giant squid!

and other sea creatures in ocean hall

or the dinosaurs or gems or bugs or hundreds of other things to see...

Another of our favorites are the air and space museums. Both the one downtown and the larger airport hangar in Northern Virginia have provided us hours of entertainment. North loves the planes and satellites and missiles and space ships...

But most of all he LOVES the helicopters...

We've also been to the National Zoo, where we got to meet the beautiful Lila--daughter of one of Bridgett's college roommates

And the American History museum with Nana and Grandad

And the National Galleries and Hirshorn Museum

North particularly loves the sculpture garden at the National Gallery--we can't seem to walk past it without him requesting a trip to the fountain where visitors dip their feet.

our favorite sculpture is the silver tree

We had an eventful trip to the spy museum with Grandma and Grandpa in which someone pulled the fire alarm

which preceded an eventful evening out for Alan and me--for our anniversary Grandma and Grandpa took North while we headed out on the town for a nice dinner--only to have our dinner plans fall short when an underground fire broke out cutting off power to significant portions of downtown.

the restaurant after losing power...

and the scene at the Treasury after we emerged from the restaurant...

the White House of course was still nicely lit up...

The same weekend we were also able to see some monuments like the Lincoln Monument (where North was HIGHLY disappointed to not find his friend Lincoln)

and the World War II memorial where we visited the registry and found Papa

We also recently visited the building museum where we were able to visit the temporary Lego exhibit which North loved

And North has recently been to 2 of his first major sporting events!

His first major league baseball game (the Nationals v the Cardinals) [he's still talking about seeing a ball hit so hard the bat broke!]