Smithsonian | an Art School Dropout's life

Like I said yesterday, I took way too many photos of the butterflies in the Smithsonian Butterfly Pavilion. I couldn’t help it! It was an amazing experience. It is a long, narrow room that is just filled with hundreds of butterflies. SO MANY BUTTERFLIES!

They had loads of places to land, but sometimes if you were lucky they’d land of you! they landed on my husband A LOT.

Plus there are people walking around telling you about the butterflies and even helping you catch one on a paint brush (you aren’t allowed to touch them) CT was able to hold the paintbrush a few times. It was one of the highlights of her birthday.

Right before you walk into the pavilion they also an exhibit where they teach you all about the life cycle of butterflies and moths. If you go at certain times of day they also have other huge insects that you can hold… if you’re brave enough.

If you are ever in DC I highly recommend this as a stop! It’s $6 an adult, $5 per kid to get into the pavilion, but its SO worth it. I’d do it every month, maybe even twice a month. I’d recommend buying tickets ahead of time just in case, they only allow a certain amount of visitors per half hour. Oh and if you on Tuesdays it’s free!! (but you should still reserve tickets online, I imagine the free days are packed)

I’m already looking forward to when the holiday season is over so we can head back down. We were told that each time you visit is a completely different experience. I want to see if that’s true.

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My little girl turned FOUR last week! Super crazy. For her birthday we asked if there was anything special she wanted to do. Her original response was “go to the park”. We then explained she could do more too and started listing off loads of places. In the end she told us she wanted to go to the museum, because theres a museum in Animal Crossing video game. Though in the game theres Art, Dino Skeletons, Live Insects and Butterflies. Luckily the Smithsonian covers most of that stuff all in one building and it’s only a short drive and a metro ride away!

First we checked out the Dinosaur Skeletons and Fossils, since that was her first request. It’s also a big thing in the game. You dig up fossils, take them to the museum and a little owl guy checks them out and then you have skeletons that you can donate to the museum or sell for profit.

I may have gone a bit overboard with the photos, but seriously the Smithsonian is SO COOL! I grew up visiting all the museums on field trips, with my family and then as a teenager with my friends. I had the biggest smile on my face all day watching CT freak out about everything. She is really into skeletons and such right now (Thanks to the Dr. Suess book: Inside Your Outside, All About the Human Body) So the exhibits actually kept her attention.

Lucky for us there was also a small exhibit with live fish. So we could check that off the Animal Crossing list.

They also had gems and live butterflies like in the game! (I took so many photos of the butterflies that they require their own post)

As you can tell from our required photo outside the museum, it was COLD! I think it was freezing temps actually. Don’t worry, we were all super bundled up.

To end our Animal Crossing themed museum trip, we headed next door to the National Gallery of Art Sculptural Garden. Seriously one of my absolute favorite places! CT loved walking underneath the sculptures and see just how big they were!.