Field Trip

During Christmas Break I took Bowman and Tenney to The National Museum of The American Indian. It is in Washington DC and since it is part of the Smithsonian it is FREE! We took the metro from the Huntington station to L'Enfant Plaza and walked right over to it.
Bowman and Tenney had went there over the summer with their nanny Annie and they were just OK with going there. I had never been there. It opened in about 2004 I think. Outside they had some teepees and other stuff that I took the girls pictures in ..until a guard came and screamed at us and told us they were not for us to take pictures in they were just exhibits.
On the first floor there was a big open area that they use for performances, while we were there they announced that there was going to be a storyteller in that area so we went down there even though Bowman said that sounded REALLY BORING and WHY DID WE HAVE TO GO!!!! I said we are going anyway it could be cool...we got there.. and sat and waited and waited ...no storyteller came... so um yeah...I guess Bowman was right you can't get much more boring then a storyteller NOT SHOWING UP...I did see someone from my ward there, Alicia she had a daughter Genevive that was in the nursery with me so it was nice seeing her there.
On the second floor there was a really cool exhibit called Up Where We belong and it had different native Americans that were involved in music of all different types and kinds. We all got headphones and as we went through the exhibit we pressed different numbers and heard about that artist and what tribe they were from and what they did in music and then we heard a song by them. They had fourteen people and the 14th was Jimi Hendrix they said that there is no proof that Jimi Hendrix has any native American in him but that he did a lot for that culture and appreciated them and honored them by how he dressed. They had a coat of Jimi Hendrix's there so I got a picture of myself with it.
On the third floor they had exhibits of things that native American people had made and large exhibits of native Americans today and things that they are doing and stuff they are involved in. That was interesting.
On the fourth floor they had a movie theater and we went in something that resembled a lodge. it was circular and you had to sit on steps. I sat on the floor. An old Asian lady came and sat very close to Tenney and said thank you honey and hugged her. Tenney said later I can't believe that old Chinese lady hugged me and I just let her keep sitting that close to me...hahahahah so we all sat they had a screen that had three sides so everyone in the room could watch it. We watched a video presentation of Native American way of life for different tribes. the video was projected onto a large white "Indian"blanket what ever was going in the sky was broadcast on the ceiling which was round and whatever was going on the ground was broadcast on a large rock. They also would light up different cases with things that tribe had made when that tribe was on the screen.
After the movie we went to the cafe they had food from lots of different tribes of native American and they don't serve hamburgers there JUST BUFFALO!!! I kinda wanted to try it but I decided against it because I had just had a burger the day before at Five Guys in Frederick so I got some chicken fingers instead. After we ate we went to the gift shop I got a magnet and Bowman got an native American instrument for kids for 5$ and Tenney got a necklace for 5$. I also got a little coin shaped thing that you are supposed to collect from all the Smithsonian's IDK if I will do that but I can tape it in my journal at least. I wanted to get Justin a very cute stuffed beaver that they had but I did not have enough $ for it. Maybe another time.
We walked back to the metro and took the metro back to Alexandria. When we got there Bowman just sat on the car I was like BOWMAN GET OUT OF THERE! The metro man spoke to her to..he was like you need to get out this car I am not going down the line with you in here... I was like Bowman you don't just sit on the metro... you needed to get out of there when Tenney and I did.. she was like well my shoe was off.. I said well when I told you that our stop was NEXT then that is when you needed to put it on and if it was still off then you just needed to carry it out... KIDS!!!!aah!!!! So that is our day at the museum. I think it went well :)