balls!

The National Building Museum has a different special event each summer (architecture firms that setup cool mini golf holes), but this year they installed the very popular DC Beach. It is considered an art installation full of white balls and structures. It is wildly popular! We went on a weekday expecting it to be less crowded, and got in without much of a wait, but it was at its 400 person capacity nearly right away (I think the tourists were on it!) Now I expected to be able to hop in and "float" all around, so we headed straight to the edge of the "pier" and hopped in... Plunk, and you are essentially stuck in nearly four feet of balls with nothing to push off against.  It was sorta hilarious and scary all at the same time. Eventually you could squeeze a foot to the bottom and trudge along, but the kids needed to be rescued nearly every 30 seconds. They would disappear as they sunk down and just a little hand or foot would shoot up for someone to yank them up. Thank goodness J was there to help rescue all of us. We hung out in the shallow spot since it's all on an incline. After we picked up some snacks (marshmallow s'mores pops) from their food truck setup. Then we got an aerial view from the Play zone upstairs. We love the NBM, but even more when it's nearly empty. And I guess we will leave the ball pits to the kids...