Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

One morning we decided to take an early bike ride with the kids and check out the Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden, which opens at 7:30.  The  Hirshhorn Museum building is a sculpture itself.  It is a open cylinder elevated by four massive "legs", with a large fountain occupying the central courtyard (and looks like a large spacecraft parked on the National Mall.)  

Maliah enjoyed sitting next to the white flowers... just long enough to snap a photo. 

Then, like always, the kids gravitated to the water.  Things start off with gentle splashing, but I know where this is going!  They end up drenched but they don't care!

Catch me if you can!

The outdoor work displayed on the ground floor of the museum was titled Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads.  There are 12 bronze animal heads representing the signs of the Chinese zodiac, each of which stand approximately ten feet high, and are displayed around the perimeter of the fountain in the Museum’s central plaza. (These sculptures are re-envisioned and enlarged versions of the original eighteenth-century heads that were designed during the Qing dynasty for the fountain-clock of the Yuanming Yuan [Garden of Perfect Brightness], an imperial retreat outside Beijing, and which were pillaged in 1860 by invading Europeans.)



It looks better from this angle

The kids enjoyed finding/seeing each new animal (despite the fact they weren't so cuddling looking).  However, they were upset the center fountain pool wasn't on!









 Magnus enjoys a moment of contemplation, as he holds his brown leaf while surrounded by green foliage!

Tough Guy

Magnus loves to run around the house with his sweatbands on.  Ever so often he pauses and wipes the sweat off his head with the sweatbands (as if he had some sweat).  Then he runs around again.  Today he was not only a fast runner in his sweatbands but also a ‘Tough Guy,’ and he gave me a good tough guy pose to prove it!!

Faces

After Magnus woke up from a nap while we were driving the truck. I entertained him with a game of him making different faces and me showing them back to him on the
camera (ah the age of digital) Here are some of the out-takes!



Just waking up...

Getting a little more social.. but still sassy

        

I am happy



I am silly



National Zoo

One of the favorite spots for the kids to visit at the zoo is the farm animals!  Perhaps because the kids get to actually touch these animals.  And the kids love the water pump where they get to wash their hands afterwards.  And they often wash their hands 3-5 times, until I finally push them along to the next exhibit!

Arlington Cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery was established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna (Custis) Lee, a great grand-daughter of Martha Washington. The cemetery is situated directly across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial. It covers 624 acres, veterans and military casualties are interred in the cemetery, ranging from the American Civil War through to the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Pre-Civil War dead were reinterred after 1900.

Can he be more patriotic...

...looks like he can (deep contemplation, graveside)

Could she be any cuter.. pig tails, toting a stuff puppy,
and shirt that says "I love the USA"












REBELS!!

WWII Memorial

Magnus and Maliah enjoyed thier visit to the WWII memorial on the National Mall. 

Maliah prepping for her Marilyn Monroe USO tour

Kids showing thier respect by... getting wet?

....and wetter

Deborah & sister Theresa posing in front of our home state
(The Show-Me State)

The U.S. National World War II Memorial, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is a National Memorial dedicated to Americans who served in the armed forces and as civilians during World War II. It consists of 56 pillars and a pair of arches surrounding a plaza and fountain, as well as 24 bronze bas-relief panels that depict wartime scenes of combat and the home front. Two-thirds of the 7.4-acre site is landscaping and water. Each pillar is inscribed with the name of one of the 48 U.S. states of 1945, as well as the District of Columbia, the Alaska Territory and Territory of Hawaii, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The northern arch is inscribed with "Atlantic"; the southern one, "Pacific." http://www.nps.gov/wwii/historyculture/index.htm

Mother's Day