Madison LOVES American Girl dolls and their stories. She really enjoys playing with the dolls and has several of them. For her birthday, Karen and Clay told her she could have lunch at the American Girl Bistro and pick out an outfit. On Thursday, we took her there for her outing. Clay took the day off work, so he took the boys to the food court for pizza and a train ride around the mall. Karen and I had lunch with Madison, and we really had a great time.
American Girl, Tysons Corner, VA (Washington D.C. store)
This was our second visit to this location. We stopped two years ago, shortly after the store originally opened.
She was SO happy!
Hannah, her first and still favorite doll, was along for the day.
Posing with Saige, the Girl of the Year
Madison with Saige
So, Madison has been saving money for a long time to buy a doll. She decided on Saige, knowing she would be retired at the end of the year. She enjoys her story, and she also likes the fact that Saige is a desert girl, as Madison has been.
Lunchtime...she started with two baby seats for her dolls...
Then, she decided that all of her dolls (she even left two dolls at home and two in the car!) needed to have seats.
So sweet...the restaurant even serves the dolls.
Madison had the pretzel appetizer and then had the chicken fingers, fruit, with mac and cheese for her entrée.
Madison with Saige and her Saige
After that outing, we drove downtown to see the sites. It was not a great weather day, as it rained while we were there. That didn't allow us to walk around as much as we wanted, but we still did a lot. The Capitol is behind us in the cloudy haze.
The crew with the Capitol in the very distant background
This was as close and as good of a shot as we could get of the Washington Monument. It's still under construction from the earthquake damage.
The Museum of Natural History-this was our goal of the afternoon, the "Dino Museum" as the boys called it. The kids LOVED it.
Alex has really gotten into Triceratops lately, so he was very excited to see real bones.
The boys!
Edward, we found a "Hebra" in the museum!!!! Haha!! They are actually called Opaki, which we have always known. However, we first saw these years ago at the San Diego Zoo and decided a better name would be a "Hebra" for horse and zebra since they look like a cross of the two. What is really funny is that Luke's favorite stuffed animal is the Opaki we bought him at the zoo years ago. It even made the trip to D.C.!
Back in the car, as it started raining heavier...we did see the White House. It was rush hour, so it was particularly hard to get around D.C. easily. We wanted to do and see more, but we had bad weather, tired kids, pregnant Karen, and well, just a full day!
After hopping in the HOV lane, we made a VERY FAST drive back to Springfield. It was awesome. I love that we could get home so quickly. Yea for my minivan :) We stopped at one of their favorite Mexican restaurants for dinner, and it worked out really well. Everyone was hungry and ate well.
Back at the house, the boys had to show off their purchase from the Lego store at the mall...not Legos, but swords. Now, there is a story. The boys purchased similar swords from LEGOLAND in San Diego a few years ago when we visited there. They LOVED these swords and really used them. The swords had to be thrown out recently after the cat clawed them up, and they also just finally fell apart. I had been looking for replacements, but nothing...until the Lego store had these!!!! YEA!! My dueling two were so excited.
On the trip, the boys purchased: 2 president baseballs (very cool with pictures of the presidents all over the baseball), 2 toy muskets from Mt. Vernon, 2 sword and shield sets....love boys :)
Madison purchased: 10 history books, American Girl Saige, American girl outfit set
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