The rest of our weekend...

I suppose this is not directly homeschooling.. but since "The world is our classroom", this definitely applies. Saturday we went to Burke Lake Park but I don't have pictures of that. We spent the day riding the 4.5 mile loop around the lake (Trevor rode the whole way!), fishing a little, picnicking, and just generally hanging out.

Ray was on call all weekend and Sunday he discovered he would have to go into DC to work briefly. So on a whim, we all decided to go. We spent some time at Ray's office, hanging out in the break room and drinking coffee/hot chocolate (they have a coffee machine that makes starbucks for free!). When Ray was finished we left the car in the lot and took the metro to the mall. It was a gorgeous day out, 75 degrees, sunny, not overcrowded. The kids ran for a while, then we went to the Natural History museum and discovered, to our delight, the butterfly exhibit!!! My Smithsonian membership came in handy (THANKS MOM!) and got us discounted tickets to get in. It was an amazing experience and we all loved it. We did take pictures- it's a lot easier to take pictures when both parents are there. :)


Enjoying some hot chocolate in the break room at daddy's work.


Running on the mall in DC.


Rachael holding a hissing cockroach in the insect zoo in the Natural history museum. Rachael is thrilled to realize there are people out there whose job it is to study and play with bugs! Rachael adores bugs (except spiders, thanks to me. argh). She spends much time seeking out pill bugs, worms, beetles, ant hills, and caterpillars.


Ariel holding the cockroach. She likes bugs, too, but not like her sister does. See how big it is! He was pretty cool.


The entrance to the butterfly exhibit.


A lovely butterfly. I can't remember what it was called. They gave us identification cards for finding out what we were looking at, but I can't remember all of them.


I think this one is called an Owl Butterfly. There were tons of these guys around.


A pretty green butterfly. There were not many of these and the people working there got all excited to see one.


Then a Morning Cloak (i think!) butterfly landed right on Rachael's head! The lady was right there and had to brush it off, but told Ray to get over quick so he could take a picture (he was at the other end looking at another butterfly)!


After she brushed it off Rachael, it flew right to Trevor's head! It was a very friendly butterfly.

All in all, a busy and fun weekend was had by all. Today we spent 3+ hours at Lake Fairfax where we also see fun things. No snakes today, but we did see a glimpse of a river otter- which was really exciting! We also saw a bright neon green caterpillar, TONS of tadpoles (the day I brought nothing to collect them in!) and a turtle. There were so many tadpoles the girls could pick them up in their hands. It's just amazing that a park so close to our house, literally 5 minutes away, always has new discoveries to be made.