autumninok: There's no place like home...

On our 9th day of travel it was time to head home. We had an afternoon flight so we did what we had done every morning while in D.C. & went to breakfast at the Faculty Club which was located in our hotel.

Annie loved breakfast at the hotel because she got to drink apple juice out of a wine glass and put snazzy toppings on her pancakes. She had also discovered she got to drink from a goblet when you order mineral water from room service and ordering room service made her feel like Eloise (one of her favorite books). Needless to say, she made the most out of her hotel time because if this girl is anything in her mind it's that she's fancy. ;)

The name of the game for us when flying with the kidlets is tire them out and hold them off on a nap as long as possible so they will sleep on the plane. Thus, we headed out to another museum per Annie's request.

First we ended up at the Smithsonian Castle because we thought that would be all kinds of fun for Annie. Castle, fancy girl = good times.

Instead it just ended up being a lovely architectural structure with exhibits that weren't too interesting for a four-year old. It did have beautiful gardens outside that allowed for pretty photo ops.

After a quick visit in that building we moved outside where Nana had spotted a carousel so Denver had his first fake horse ride.

Maybe it was the horse's poor attitude or possibly pink blanket under the saddle but whatever it was he took some convincing (as you can tell from the expression on my face) that the over-priced ride was actually fun.

We then headed across the street to the Museum of American History so Annie could get a peek at the ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz. (Useful Trivial Pursuit knowledge - the ruby slippers are one of the most asked about items throughout all the Smithsonian exhibits.)

While hunting them down we got to go through a really nice American wars exhibit where we got to see a large copy of my favorite Life photograph.