Butterflies as documented by my dying camera...

 So it turns out that I am not that bad a photographer after all....my camera is just dying.  Swell.

One of my goals since moving to the greater DC area is to become a "local".  I pride myself in finding a quick niche when we move to a new place.  I like to have my favorite places to visit, obscure finds that we love to frequent.  In Connecticut, it was places like the Cider Mill and Kitchen Little on the banks of the river in Mystic for breakfast.  Here, I want to know the museums like the back of my hand.  I want to know what days to go, where to park and what to see.

So when I found out that the butterfly exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History was free on Tuesdays, we hopped on it (remember, teacher work day?) Weekdays are always the best to go downtown anyway.  We have half days every Monday and have taken frequent advantage of those less busy afternoons to wander to our little hearts delight.

By the way, in case you couldn't tell, there is a butterfly on my head.

 What I love about this is two-fold. First, we live so close to downtown that we can come even for a short amount of time and there is no pressure to have to see everything.  We can come for a whole day, or just an hour and it is totally worth it.  Secondly, each time we come we have found something interesting and fun, and pertinent! A few weeks ago we visited the American Heritage Museum just as Abby and Haley were starting units at school about Native Americans.  And this week, we just happen to stumble upon an entire exhibit about vertebrates, that Abby just had a test on last week.  They get excited and engaged and it makes it even more interesting for them.  They ask lots of questions.  I love to watch them wander and observe where their train of thoughts and curiosities lead them.

 I also love that the majority of these museums are FREE! We have wanted to see the butterfly exhibit for a while but it is one exhibit within the museum that costs money.  So not only was Tuesday free, but the entire museum was the most empty we have ever seen it.

Poor Abby waited and waited for a butterfly to land on her.

 I love that Hazel begs for her green skirt and boots everyday.  The butterflies rather liked her skirt too.  She had several land on her repeatedly, but only blue ones.

This one steadily made it's way up her body.  She liked it at first....

 but not so much by the time it got to her neck.

(blurry picture=dying camera)

Mia also had a hitchhiker. (crazy lines on picture=dying camera...do you see a pattern here?)

 The messy hair, unfortunately, has nothing to do with the dying camera.

 From the butterfly exhibit we wandered through the hall of insects...could have done without that.  Who really wants to be that close to live centipedes, millipedes and scorpions?  Not me.  Not really.

Then ironically enough (after our little recent visit to the gory museum of death on Monday) we stumbled upon another forensics exhibit.  This one was actually really fascinating though because it focused on the research done on early Colonial America.  The girls were surprisingly captivated by the skeletons and all the stories that we can learn about the people from studying their teeth and bones.  Moral of this visit? Brush and floss, people.  Brush and floss unless you want to die.

We always have to walk through the gem and mineral hall less Haley has a conniption.  We like to look at the precious gems and decide which ones are our favorites.  Then we wander through the minerals and roll our eyes and sigh loudly a lot so Haley will hurry it up a little.

And now I leave you with my final thought.  The Hope Diamond has been put in a new setting.  I think it is tacky looking.  But that's just me.