Birthday Trip to The National Gallery of Art

Rebecca has always wanted to go to the art museums in Washington D.C., so for her birthday we surprised her with a trip to the National Gallery of Art.  It was a nice opportunity to see some beautiful works of art by some famous artists from different points in history.  Our favorites were the paintings, but we also saw sculptures, medals and coins, tapestries, drawings, and some gorgeous pieces of furniture.  But we really, really loved the paintings!

This one of the Pantheon in Rome looked...well...exactly like the Pantheon! (I know this because I've been there!)

We thought this one was so cute, and the girls just had to pose.  Life imitating art.

Rebecca was so happy that they had some VanGogh paintings there!

Here she is with Vincent himself:

I found my favorite Monet painting!

These two by Renoir reminded me of the girls when they were little, so I just had to take pictures of them each by "their" painting.

The whole place was very beautiful.

The outdoor sculpture garden has an ice skating rink in the middle of it! Fun!

There's also a very nice cafe in the Sculpture Garden, where we had a delicious (and just slightly overpriced) lunch.  I had the spinach tart, yum!

Here's Rebecca back at home on her birthday with the giraffe cake that I made for her.  I did the giraffe print with a stencil (I just drew it on a piece of paper and cut it out) and cocoa powder.  It turned out pretty cute!

I can't believe she's 17!