Postal museum

Yesterday was Darlaina's birthday and we decided to go on an adventure. After a couple different plans, we decided on the postal museum in dc. i'm always game for a new adventure!

we got into town easily and found our parking garage.

then we rode in a fancy gold elevator and though I tried to get everyone in a picture, I failed.

everyone was hungry, so after potty breaks we headed over to union station, where, between our 3 families we hit up nearly every restaurant trying to make everyone happy. thankfully for my crew, it worked and everyone ate almost all of their food.

a&f got burgers and fries, d&i got Italian - pizza for her, Stromboli for me.

after lunch we headed to the postal museum. it was cute and small, and it was nice to feel like we'd really completed the whole museum.

one of the first things we did was to make stamps. for some reason I was the first one, and in my haste I left the "forever" right across my mouth. I think it just makes my stamp more valuable, kind of like the inverted jenny.

it was really fun, we got to completely design our stamps. background color, country name, and rate.

and then they put it all together and we were able to email it to ourselves.

I really liked the classic design!

next it was laney's turn. the stamp maker took 4 pictures of you, and then you could choose the one you liked best. I thought it was hilarious that laney chose this silly one!

love this goofy face maker!

and lastly from my group, addie-cakes.

by this point I understood how it worked, so hers was probs the best.

after that I made sure my girls had their envelopes and had picked their 6 stamps each to take home. that was a fun treat. everyone had fun picking their treasures to take.

next we went through stamps on these huge computers and got to pick 10 to put in a collection and email. it was fun to see stamps we've had over the years, and the girls all loved meticulously searching through all the different options.

they had a forest for the kids to walk through to pretend they were old timey mail carriers. it was very well done, and we had to go back through because my girls liked it so much.

we got to ride a stagecoach.

and saw piles and piles of postcards in the post secret station.

one of the fav things was the semi tractor.

we had 10 girls between the 3 of us, so everything we did took a really long time. I finally decided to start timing the girls sitting in the drivers seat.

everyone got a minute.

I also had to keep the kids back so no one else would push any of the buttons, because these things matter.

they all loved the truck! and I can't imagine knowing how to operate this giant thing.

#legit

these 2 goofies got along pretty well. it was nice.

they had these fun video players.

addie is such a big helper!

they had a place to stamp and sort mail.

there were actual addresses written on the letters and you could match the city on the letter to the box.

everyone gets a turn!

too bad there were only 5 letters for them to sort. i'm thinking they've been disappearing.

they got to scan packages and certified letters. and it was not easy to do, but they each worked until the got it.

then we sorted packages.

you sorted these by region also, and then like a basketball game at a pizza place, the package came right back to you.

hours of fun!

it was a cute museum, and very well done.

here was our second time through the forest.

here was my attempt at getting everyone together for a picture. only addie came. after I took this and addie walked away, abby and arden came. all the a's!

we crunched some numbers and submitted some files that looked suspicious.

we got some vital information.

franks was good news.

this was fun. huge touchscreen. you could tap the apple and it would take a bite with each tap, stir your drink, drive your lego car, etc.

it was cute.

escalators are exciting for our country bumpkins.

they had these huge screens and at the end of the day the girls were so tired that they sat down and watched, mesmerized.

what I love here is the kid in the background dancing. divas, all of them

I loved this cute postcard and most of the girls were happy to pose.

some were pouty. I can't even remember why.

let's try that again...

she's trying to stay mad...

and success. my girls have staying power. to be fair, most of the girls had their moments throughout the day.

little bratty.

then we got pictures of the moms with their daughters. only...

I tried threatening, but no use.

all you can do is laugh.

after we'd finished the museum, and we did the whole museum, we went back to union station for ice cream. I could tell this chic was heading to sleepytown.

and yup!

we got the kids icee's and us shake shack's and hit the bathroom one last time before leaving dc at the peak of rush hour.

thankfully ma trusty phone took us a good way and we got home easily. after we got everyone to bed I had to pta it up. it's been a nice break all summer, but it's getting close to time to get back to work, and reports needed done. blah! I'm ready for another roadtrip.