An interestingly unusual "petting zoo"

Those of you who know me know that I try to keep the boys busy. Life can be challenging with four boys. And you also know how I love FREE so we took advantage of yet another free e activity in the Washington area this past weekend (September 12th) by attending the Kennedy Center open house arts festival. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a living memorial to the late President John F. Kennedy and is a beautiful building located on the brink of historic Georgetown and near George Washington University. Another free activity available at this beautiful venue is the Millenium Stage - which offers free live performances daily at 6pm. For more info, check out www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/. Anyway, as for the open house, our trip to the Kennedy Center started off rocky as we searched for nearly 45 minutes for a parking space on the street. If we didn't have somewhere to be afterward I definitely would've done Metro there. Despite the rocky start, we had a great time.

The boys seemed to enjoy seeing the various performers which included a moving piano player. I mean literally the piano on wheels moved as he played. Macadam Piano was definitely an interesting sight that we saw at our arrival.

Macadam Piano

enjoying the outside view of moving piano

Then we ventured inside and were able to see some performers singing snippets from the opera, The Barber of Seville . . .even if you don't know this opera I know you know the song "figaro, figaro" from Bugs Bunny fame . . .

Drew and Dylan checking out the opera scene from the Barber of Seville performers

Then we ventured upstairs to the multicultural book fair and got one of the books we own (The Champ: the story of Muhammed Ali) signed by the author, Tonya Bolden. She was extremely gracious and signed it to Drew and Dylan, even though I don't think she was supposed to. Thanks for that one.

Then we ventured outside for another performance by Béron, a miming magician or something, who was very entertaining with juggling and a very Mr. Bean-ish performance. We enjoyed him for a while.

the boys checking out Béron

more Béron

Maestro Mouse - the mascot

Then we got in line for the National Symphony Orchestra instrument petting zoo - a hands-on experience with orchestra instruments. The boys got the chance to try out several percussion instruments, the saxophone, the french horn, the clarinet, the flute, the piccolo, the violin and the cello. The boys really liked this part of the entire day. And I can definitely see school band in my future.

Nic in the percussion section with a shaker

Drew and Dylan checking out the different percussion instruments

Drew on the conga drums (that DC go-go vibe coming out)

Nic trying out the clarinet

Drew on the sax

Dylan giving it a try

Dylan on the french horn (video below)

Drew on the trombone

Dylan channeling his inner Yo-Yo Ma

Drew trying to show him up

Dylan getting instruction on how to handle the violin's bow

Drew and his turn with the violin




Dylan on the french horn



Drew Bug "Satchmo" Robinson on the horn

As we were leaving because we had another engagement to attend, we walked through the Washington Chalk Festival and the boys wrote their names on the sidewalk and we admired some real chalk art on large canvases. En route to our car, we saw our final performance of La Voile, an aerialist who was literally hanging by a string (well, a lot of strings since it was cloth) in front of the Kennedy Center performing to music. This part, while breathtakingly beautiful, scared me because it was a bit windy and there was no net. But he seemed to know exactly what he was doing and the boys were fascinated.

Overall, it was a wonderful afternoon of exposing the boys to the arts. I hope to take them to some Millennium Stage performances and hope to make it back to the Open House next year.