Have I Mentioned the Part About How I Love It Here?

We woke up to SNOW this morning, but I took the girls up to DC anyway. The snow was melted and the sun was out on a beautiful day. The funny thing about living in Quantico is that the Metro choices are a little limited - so, long story short, I drive to Huntington (40 minutes away) and take the train from there. It takes a lot longer, but I hate looking for parking and the train is an adventure in itself for these two cute commuters.

The United States Botanic Garden - it's sooooo stinking cool.

There is a sensory room - it's super cool. You can probably tell the middle of the flowers are little acrylic-covered containers of dried spices, dried grasses, dried pine needles, etc for smelling. These particular flowers had single spices and the labels told what the spice could be used for. Need to make a quick note right here - Bree's part is a mess. It's because she does. not. sit. still. EVER. =)

Cajun Gumbo had it's own little flowerbed (natch!). Each of those spices had their own flower...you could smell them all individually. (Also - the white rocks? Totally rad until Bree slipped and almost broke her arm.)

This is a cacao tree. Carly was pretty disappointed and she didn't believe me until I made her sit there and read the entire plaque.

So beautiful, my little dynamic diva.

Back outside they had a couple of different wind turbines - this one is actually spinning around and around and it's so funny with my little perpetual motion machine standing at the bottom. She told me that she wanted to climb up there and swing around on it. =)

Then running around on the lawn of the Capitol. SO fun!

Then! Which of you DC pros can tell me what this cool brick water fountain thing is? We thought it was super cool.

Then on to Union Station for a yummy Greek kabob dinner and we were heading back to find the Metro part (hint for next time: it's actually downstairs where we already were). Carly loved the ceiling of the station. While we were there, a high school choir did this really rad flashmob singing thing, but my kiddos had had about enough and were not willing to stand quietly so we had to leave. At one point I think I was actually carrying both of them away quickly so we didn't ruin the whole thing for everyone else. I'm going to try and find it on YouTube....apologies in advance for the screaming kids. =)