I managed to cross a few items off my 30 Before 30 list in August and September; that’s the good news. The bad news is that I forgot to take pictures of some of them — d’oh! But still, it feels pretty good to cross them off:

• #3: Explore a part of LA I’ve never been to before
• #4: Explore a part of Dallas I’ve never been to before
• #6: Visit a city I’ve never been to before (Philadelphia)
• #7: Read 30 books
• #10: Have a wine tasting night
• #13: Have a Turning 30 dinner party with friends
• #14: Host a Virtual Vacation Week (turned out to be a night, but whatever)
• #26: Try yoga

Seeing this list, one thing is very clear: I have a bad habit of forgetting to take my camera with me or to take it out of my bag. I gotta work on that.

I did, however, remember to have my camera out for #1: Visit a museum I’ve never been to before. There were several we hit up in D.C., but my favorite has to be the newer Air and Space Museum out by Dulles Airport.

Blackbird!

Seriously, if you get a chance to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center (the official name), go. Even if you’re not really into airplanes, it’s a really incredible museum filled with a ton of historical pieces, including (but not limited to) a SR-71A Blackbird stealth fighter, a full-size space shuttle, a Concorde, and a whole plethora of space artifacts and airplanes from various time periods.

Concorde!

My dad has been wanting to go to this museum since we knew it was opening, and so did I. So, to be honest with you, a good majority of my photos from this day were of me walking behind my dad and snapping a photo of whatever he seemed mildly interested in. Doing that gave me photos for pretty much 80% of the museum (there were a couple of hot air balloon baskets and Korean War era planes I missed), but hey, I had extra memory cards for just this reason.

Here are just a handful of my favorite photos:

I’m not going to lie – I think this tiny little wooden airplane is flat-out adorable. A description which I’m sure would please the manly men who built her and the male docents in the museum. I just managed to avoid squealing out “Oh, how cuuuuute!” But only just.

I should mention this space shuttle was not one that actually went up to space. It was a mock-up for test pilots to test the landing gear. They didn’t believe it could reenter the atmosphere and land on its own, so NASA built them one to try it out and to prove it could. Still! Space shuttle! It was wildly impressive and quite massive. We were on a tour, we turned a corner, and bam! Space shuttle. Like a fun little surprise.

Another fun tidbit: This airplane is called the “Airphibian” and is a mix between a car and a plane. So, it’s a car that flies or a plane that you can drive. The cockpit part detaches, as shown, so once you’ve landed, you simply pop off the wings and drive off into the sunset.

Overall, I was blown away by the Udvar-Hazy Center. I’m not sure what I expected as far as displays go, but I loved how everything was set up. Planes were hung up in the air as well as on the ground, and there were several catwalks you could walk up on to put the hanging planes at eye-level (my fear of heights only allowed me to go on the lowest one before I ran towards solid ground – that’s where the photo directly above was taken). There was also an IMAX theater and a tower you could go up to and see the airplanes at Dulles taking off (I skipped this, too, but I hear my nephew loved it).

So, if you can’t tell, I’d mark this museum as a must-see if you’re ever in D.C. Give yourself a full day so you can take a tour, eat, see the tower, watch a movie, and take lots and lots of photos.

This post is part of my 30 Before 30 list. You can see all of the posts here.

If you’re curious, all photos in this post were taken by me, then processed using Photoshop actions from Florabella Collection (specifically Retro Vintage, Vintage Summer I & II, Cosmopolitan, and Vintage Wine).

It occurred to me that I haven’t really been that great at taking pictures when I do my 30 Before 30 list. But, in all fairness, some items just don’t lend itself well to photos. Either way, I’ve knocked off a couple items last week, and realized, hey, I’ve actually done more, so I’m counting them.

Last week, and the week I took off in February, is probably as close to reaching this particular goal as I’m going to get. Living in a digital world, I cannot seem to unplug unless I send myself packing to a foreign country. I’m not saying it can’t happen, and that I wouldn’t mind revisiting this item if life aligns itself that way; but if it doesn’t, I’m going to call this one checked off.

I did this one last week. I actually watched all the Harry Potter movies that are out back to back. I also watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Lethal Weapon movies, a season of West Wing, and almost got through the Firefly series, too. Can we say couch potato? Couuuuch po-tay-toooo.

I finished this one a couple weeks ago (you remember), but forgot that it was on my 30 Before 30 list. Doh.

I’m going to count this one done, too, even though The Declaration of You wasn’t technically an art class. But it did get me thinking about art and where I want to go so – win!

What about you? How are your yearly goals coming?

This post is part of my 30 Before 30 list. You can see all of the posts here.

Last fall, Tara over at Scoutie Girl asked a really intriguing question, and it’s been in the back of my mind ever since: What will you teach the new generation about creativity?

Having no kids of my own, all of my child interactions comes from other people’s babies – like my niece and nephew.

I love these two like they were my own children. I’ve been there for everything I can, and it pains me when I know I’m missing little daily things. But when I’m with them, I love watching them play. I love when they ask questions. I love involving myself with these two little beings who are so full of love and laughter. And the thing is, it comes to them naturally. They are so cuddly, and so loving, it floors me.

A while back, something else occurred to me as I watched them. Not only does love come naturally to them, so does creativity.

Parents out there already know this; they’ve got kids of their own that show these natural tendencies. No one ever had to teach them anything about creativity or make believe; their minds were already wide open to the possibilities.

I was reminded of this again two weekends ago, when the two little munchkins showed up at my house (with their mom, of course, though they are familiar enough with flying to navigate themselves here from NYC on their own, despite being super short and young).

I took the opportunity to knock off another 30 Before 30 item, and had an art day with them. It was so nice to get to spend quality one-on-two time with them. “Art day” is also a little generous, since they are still only 3 and almost 5, but for a few hours, we had a lot of fun.

I asked them what they wanted to do – paint, bake, sculpt – and wouldn’t you know? They both wanted to make jewelry. Totally unprompted by me, but I loved it. So, I dragged out a bunch of glass beads and showed them how to put them on a string to make a necklace, and stretchy stuff I had for bracelets.

In my head, I was thinking of all the tricks I knew, and how I could translate that for their age. But then a curious thing happened. After separating all of the beads by color (again, totally unprompted by me – the little miss decided that because she had just learned about the color wheel in school), they both sat down and figured it out.

I didn’t need to teach them anything. They already got it.

And I decided to let them just play. Rather than telling them the “right” way, I let them put things together on their own. They chose their own colors, their own beads, and how they wanted them to be on their necklaces and bracelets. And by the end of the day (or nap time), I had two proud little kids wanting to make more.

I played no role in this creative session; I wasn’t really a teacher, I was barely a participant (“No, I can do it.”). So, when I sat down to write this, I flashed back to Tara’s post. When she asked “What will you teach the next generation about creativity?”, my first thought was “Not much”. They’ve already got it.

So flipping cute.

This post is part of my 30 Before 30 list. You can see all of the posts here.