I went on vacation: Day 1

It started out at the Smithsonian Castle. A truly lovely building. I love the red brick and the vaulted ceilings.
It was such a beautiful day. I love blue skies and white clouds. (as I'm sure most of you know.)

And let me just say that I am so glad that I was able to go again with my dear sisters. We missed Erica, of course. But it was such a treat being there with Michelle, Julia and Kate.


















This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip, I think.

Then we went to my all-time favorite place ever! The National Gallery Sculpture Garden. It is located just south of the Archives and in between the the National Gallery and the Museum of Natural History. It is a wonderful spot. Especially when you want to cool off and just read a book or listen to the fountains or talk on the phone. This is where I spent a lot of my time last summer.


This is in the West building of the National Gallery. It is SO big!

The National Gallery is one of my favorite museums of all because it is so big and has so many excellent things. Their ceramic collections are amazing and they have a lot of paintings from my favorite artists.

Right now they have an exhibit, "From Impressionism to Modernism" and they had so many beautiful paintings. I was so happy. And I actually went back two different days to look at it again.
Monet's Bouquet of Sunflowers is one of my very favorite paintings. (sorry it's blurry. the lighting was really bad and you can't use a flash inside the museums.)




Next was the Freer Gallery. This is another one of my all time favs. Charles Lang Freer was a great guy who commissioned one of my favortie artsists, James Abbot McNeil Whistler, to do many paintings for him. He was also very interested in Chinese ceramics.

So you can see why I would like this museum so much.

This room is awesome! It's called the Peacock Room, or the Blue and Gold Room.
I love everything in it! Someone commissioned Whistler to build and decorate it to showcase his ceramic collection.

There is a fire place under that big painting and there are sunflowers andirons in front of the fireplace. I want some of those!


I love this door! I would have it in my own house someday. Those windows are so beautiful.

Then we headed over to the modern art museum, the Hirshorn. It has a pretty cool fountain, too, but you can't dip your feet in this one...

I really like what they have in the Hirshorn. It opens my mind up to so many different possibilities. So inspiring!




This is a sculpture outside the American History Museum.























At the end of the day, we returned to the Sculpture Garden to enjoy a free jazz concert. It was so fun! We dipped our feet in the fountain and read our books, soaked up the sunshine and good jazz. It was a perfect end.

I was reading The Hobbit. (first time) And I loved it!