Museum Day!

Today we went downtown to the Virginia Historical Society Museum and drove right down the street to Maymont's Nature Center. Admission is free thru the end of the month at the Historical Museum, so I thought it would be fun to check it out. They had a lot of great exhibits! It's a pretty quiet museum, so if you go, prepare the kids! Although I prepared them well, I still had to "shhh" them multiple times. Some of our favorite things were the covered wagon, Pocahontas portraits, arrowheads, old schoolhouse, streetcar, and the Native American canoe. Here is Sadie and her friend Nate dressing up in colonial clothing and here's Anabelle sporting her cap.

I really felt old when I saw an old toy bank I used to have on display!!!! I'm hoping I still have it somewhere and didn't get rid of it! I also saw a Dunn Loring firefighter's hat from the early 1900s. Dunn Loring is a town named after my father's family in Fairfax, VA.

After VHS museum, we hopped down the road to Maymont's Nature Center. Just in case you didn't know...they have a fee now. It was $3 for adults and $2 for kids 4 & up. The girls really enjoyed the otters, the owls, the fish, and the turtles. They provide you with a fish chart when you walk in and the girls did a great job matching the fish to their name. The entire time, they kept looking for a snapping turtle, but couldn't find it. Right when I said it was time to leave, Elise found it! It was HUGE and pretty scary looking! There was also an environmental educator walking around with a black snake. The girls bravely pet it and said, "It's not slimy!"