Saturday at the Smithsonian

My friend Katie came up with the brilliant idea to do "Saturdays at the Smithsonian". The plan is to pick an exhibit or few each week and visit all the Smithsonians this year. Yesterday was the second, but the first I was able to go to. I picked a National Geographic portrait photography exhibit at the Natural History Museum (photography exhibits generally have fewer children). The NHM also has the Orchid Experience right now so we decided to combine the two. Katie was running late so Heather and I met at two and went through the photography exhibit which was fantastic and then headed down to the Orchids where we painted on silk, planted our very own orchids and origamied an orchid. We still hadn't heard from Katie and her friend so we went strolling on the mall for a few minutes trying to decide what our next move would be. My eyes landed on the carousel and Heather agreed it would be great fun. Just then the other two girls showed up so the four of us were off to the horses. Let me just say - it was much faster than we expected and no, we are not bad people for partially wishing the 8 year old boy climbing up the pole of his horse would fall and teach his parents to ride these things with him instead of letting him go alone. After the ride we hoofed it over to Rosa Mexicana for some pom margs. Delightfully refreshing and very addictive. After a couple of those each, we went our separate ways and I continued my evening with a date that was not as exciting and fun as the day I'd had with the girls.