Life Chores, Museums, and Dog Pics!

With Kelly switching to the committee job, she had a few days off.  Ben arranged to take Monday off as well, which really gave us what amounted to two Sundays.  On the first, actually Sunday, we started the morning with a Target run.

 (Ben needed a new lunch box - this one was close, but didn't make the cut)

(In the big city apparently shopping carts get their own escalator)

After wrapping up some life chores, we decided to be tourists for the rest of the day.  Our first stop was the Building Museum, which is (not surprisingly) in a very impressive building that seems to be under utilized.  Originally built to house the veterans' benefits office.  

(This place is cool, but you know what would make it better... Legos)

Apparently the building is often host to a ball during the Presidential inauguration. However, the current exhibit is highlighted by Lego replicas of famous buildings.  

(Boom!)

Back on the tourist trail, we ran across some high quality souvenirs.  If you have a birthday coming up and know us, this picture might be a sneak preview.

The late afternoon brought rain, so we headed home for the evening.

(Ben Franklin says Hi)

Monday (or the 2nd Sunday if you are keeping track) was great day. We both enjoyed the day off work and knocked out a few more life chores and then did some more little sightseeing. While out, we stopped at "Shake Shack" for lunch based good reviews. Michelle Obama had lunch there a few weeks and thus,  it is a hot-spot.

(Hey, tell everyone you know Michelle Obama was just here.)

The burger was decent, the bun was great, the shake was above average and it was all way way overpriced. At least we checked it off our list of D.C. eateries.

(For those of you scoring DC eating establishments at home, we give it 2.5 chicken drumsticks out of a possible five.)

(For those of you with small children, consider ordering this from their website.)

After lunch, we headed downtown to hit up some more of the Smithsonian Museums that we had not been to yet.

(The original Smithsonian Museum)

First up was the African Art museum. It was a good museum with a lot of old masks and other carvings. It gave Ben an opportunity to flaunt the knowledge he picked up while traveling.  One of the more interesting exhibits were these modern coffins.  

 (This coffin comes with the 4G network)

The African Art museum is close to the Asian Art museum and the Freer art gallery.  They are all also connected underground and so before we knew it we had seen all of them.  It also connected to three other museums that we decided to patronize as well.  From there, we headed over to the Natural History Museum and saw the Hope Diamond, fossils, and moon rocks - oh my!

(Also, the Natural History Museum gave us the opportunity to save a lot of money on car insurance.)

Nearly 'museumed out' for the day, we did quickly swing through the Hirschorn Art Gallery on the way back to the car.

(All those museums made us thirsty.)

After our day out in D.C., we decided to stick it to "Shake Shack" and make a superior burger at home.  Somewhat surprisingly, Michelle Obama did not stop by though.

After dinner, we headed to Chinatown for a movie. Ben got free tickets to a screening of "30 minutes or less", staring Danny McBride and Jessie Eisenberg. Unfortunately the screening had filled up prior to our arrival, but since we were in the theater and had paid for parking, we decided to go to "Change Up" starring Justin Bateman and Ryan Reynolds.  It was not very good. With the exception of a few funny one liners, the movie was just not funny. Oh well it was free. If you are going to see it, wait for Redbox.

After that we went home and spent some quality time with the dogs.

(Mo decided she should try to get a job to pitch in a little - so far, the search has been difficult)