Playing Tourguide

At the end of March Andy's good friends, the Stone Family, came to visit us.

Andy's been friends with Jon since they were teeny, tiny little teenagers in Tucson, AZ together - almost 20 years ago - and has known Jon's wife, Tina, even longer.  I heard about the pair when Andy and I started dating, and met the two when Andy and I got engaged, and then Jon was the best man at our wedding.

I was always impressed that Andy and Jon stayed such good friends, despite Andy's family moving up the Colorado when he was in high school.

We've never lived in the same place as they, but have been able to visit a little; mostly while we were still in Colorado.  Ever since we got back from Hawaii, and the Stones moved to Illinois 4 years ago, we've been trying to set up a visit, but life (and lack of any real plans) always got in the way.

We were delighted, though, when they contacted us about driving East for their Spring Break to see DC.

They've got three kids, right about the same ages as our older three, and they all hit it off immediately.

Sadly, Cayden and Ashton were in school still, so we did our adventuring without them.

We first headed up the the Smithsonian and saw the American History Museum, Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum.

We've been to those many times, but it's always fun to go again with friends.

And they're free.  YEA!

At the American History Museum we got to see cool things like 3CPO and Dorothy's ruby slippers.

All the museums include some hands-on kid areas.

You just have to be careful, because you could get lost in them, and find that you've spent hours of your day there, without seeing anything else!

(This has never happened to us...)

My favorite part of the American History Museum was seeing the original Star Spangled Banner, which inspired Francis Scott Key to compose The Star Spangled Banner.

It was just amazing to me to see how big it it.  It is so threadbare, and pieces had been cut out of it as keepsakes 200 years ago, but it is the real thing.  The kids each seemed in awe, though the didn't really get the significance.

After lunch I had to head home to get Cayden and Ashton from school, but Andy took Jon and Tina to see the other museums.

 

 They enjoyed the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum,

and the mineral and gemstones.

They did a quick run-through at the Air and Space Museum before heading home and getting stuck in traffic.

Seriously, you can't have the true DC experience without getting stuck for hours in traffic.