Aquarium, Air & Space, and more!

Yesterday my brother and I took Nadia, Ian, Rachel, and Susie to the Baltimore Aquarium. We enjoyed our time there, although we were very disappointed to learn that two years ago they stopped doing dolphin shows. The dolphins are still there, so we did see them a little, but it wasn't the same as a show. Near the beginning of our time there, we saw a demonstration in which some archer fish were spitting water at crickets. Some of the spit landed on Uncle Maurice! The kids really liked the octopus and also enjoyed finding "Nemo" (clown fish) as well as his girlfriend "Dory" (Royal Blue Tang fish) in as many tanks as possible. One of my favorites there has always been the puffins, and I was very relieved that no birds pooped on my head in the rainforest exhibit, like one did there when I was a child. After spending a few hours there, we took the kids paddle boating in the harbor for the very first time before heading back to my parent's house.

Paul arrived at my parent's house a little before the kids went to bed last night. He and I took the kids to the Air & Space Museum this morning. First we enjoyed the free Sesame Street themed planetarium show at 10:30. Almost all of the shows cost money, but once or twice a week they have one free show. After touring half of the museum, we ate our packed lunch outdoors and then came back into the museum and took the kids to a hands-on exhibit. Susie was included as a volunteer in a talk on the forces of flight. We ended our time there with a paper airplane contest. Nadia was included as a volunteer in that talk.

Next we went to the Natural History Museum. We only did a small portion of it. We'll have to come back some time because Nadia really wants to see the gem exhibit. The kids enjoyed the Augmented Reality Dinosaur exhibit in which images of various dinosaurs were superimposed over a live feed of pictures of the people in the exhibit. They also enjoyed holding various insects, and I splurged and paid for them to enter a butterfly exhibit, which they thoroughly enjoyed. We were in it for 25 minutes. We took the Metro to DC today because I didn't want to deal with trying to parallel park the minivan there (if a parking spot happened to be available). Even though parking downtown isn't cheap, driving is definitely cheaper than taking the Metro when you have six people in the vehicle, but it was the first time the kids rode a subway, and it was a highlight of their day. We have had fun being tourists in DC and Baltimore this week! I took kids on field trips to many, many locations down here, so I know of many more places to take the kids as they get older and know a little more history. Tomorrow we are heading back home, and my sister and her family are coming with us for a couple of days before they head to Virginia.