Washington DC Day 2

Our second day in DC started with the National Book Festival. As we wandered through the tents towards the Pavilion of States, I stopped to peek in the children's tent. Turns out, Julianne Moore was just about to speak.

I had to snap a phone picture of my first DC celebrity sighting! I didn't even know she had written any childrens books and we didn't stay to listen.

We moved along to the tent housing the Pavilion of States. Every state and territory and a table in the tent. I picked up a US map and every table stamped their state. It was pretty fun to go around and collect all the stamps. Plus, most every table had free things to grab. Mostly just bookmarks, stickers, pencils, etc. Luckily, C-SPAN provided big tote bags to everybody so we had something to stuff our free things into.

When we were done at the Book Festival, we headed to the National Museum of Natural History. This museum is a lot like the Field Museum in Chicago, so I didn't think we'd spend much time here, but we actually did. They have lots of dinosaurs and fossils, which M loves and the Field doesn't have. I also liked the dead animal displays a lot better than the Field's. The animals were posed in lifelike poses and with animals they lived with in the wild.

The gems and minerals were also very interesting. We got to see the Hope Diamond and some other great jewelry pieces.

When we were done at he museum, we walked towards the Washington Monument and took some pictures. The Monument is still closed since it was damaged in the earthquake so couldn' go up in it.

Afterward, we were starving, so we headed to one of my favorite southern restaurants, Fuddrukers! I was craving a burger and it hit the spot. After that, we headed to a shopping center that had a HomeGoods. You know it's my favorite store and since we don't have any at home, we must go to them when we travel.

And I found something I really wanted.

What's that I spy? Is that...

It is! A Vera Bradley Yellow Bird lamp! My husband even said, "Is that Yellow Bird?" I wanted to hug it and take it home with me even though it's the wrong colors for our living room.The birds would have been perfect and I would have been with black and yellow instead of black and green.

Sadly, the price tag was not huggable. $80 is about $40 more than I'm willing to spend on a lamp, even a Vera Bradley lamp. Although the original price was $250 so $80 was a good bargain, but I just couldn't justify it now matter how much I wanted it. So, I left without the lamp, but I know I'll be thinking about it for a few days though.

Tomorrow, we'll be hitting up the National American History Museum and hopefully seeing some more monuments.