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DC part deux

The voters have spoken.

I feel like my entire house is packed. It's like we've moved. I finally located the cable for the camera, though, so this edition of My Life will be illustrated!

When I had recovered from the zoo, and BJ had returned from his conference, it was time to meet Andrew for dinner. Andrew works for the State Department. He could tell us what he does, but then he'd have to kill us. We had a great time at the Old Ebbitt Grill, which is apparently where important people like Andrew go for hamburgers. I made the mistake of ordering pasta. I've noticed something about pasta... Its quality is inversely proportional to its cost. In other words, the more expensive it is, the more it tastes like Chef Boyardee. Oh well. The hummus appetizer was really good, and the company was outstanding, so I didn't care.

Andrew walked back to our hotel with us, and we stopped along the way to get ice cream. MG was absolutely terrible. She was overtired and sick to death of being out of her routine, but she fell asleep in the stroller, so I couldn't get too mad. There was some excitement outside of our hotel. Apparently a homeless person had been harassing a woman, so the doorman called the police. They were racing around, up and down the street looking for him. An ambulance and a fire truck were also there, but I'm not sure why. No one was hurt or on fire. Anyway, it was exciting. We stood outside and watched the action, long enough to figure out what was going on. I wasn't going to go upstairs if the hotel was on fire, right?

When we finally made it to our room, we basically passed out from exhaustion and slept late the next day. Since we still had soles on our shoes, we decided to walk some more. We took the metro to Capital South, and then walked from there, past the Capital (singing "I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill...") and understanding why they call it Capital HILL.

I tried to get MG to take a nap on the lawn, but she was having none of it. We ate lunch at the cafeteria at the House Office Building, which was fun. More baby kissers. Then we walked to the Air and Space Museum. BJ was like a kid in a candy store. It was very cool to see MG getting excited over the stuff that BJ gets excited over. They are two peas in a pod.

MG got pretty fussy after about half of the A&S Museum, so I took the girls to McDonald's and let BJ finish looking at all the stuff. Turns out that we started on the wrong side - we started with Air, and should've started with Space. Oops. While we were wandering around waiting for him, a huge storm blew up and threatened to send us straight to Kansas.

Well, this was supposed to be posted yesterday, but it took a million years to get both the kids to sleep, and it didn't happen. Sorry.

Where was I? Oh, so the storm blew up and we managed to get back to the metro station before we got completely soaked. And all these jerks who could totally have walked the extra 50 feet to the escalator were crowding into the elevator that we legitimately needed (because of the stroller) and I had to bite my tongue... But anyway...

As I was standing there waiting to buy our Metro tickets, Bill and Sharon called to change our meeting place because of the storm - their timing couldn't have been better! So we went the other way, and ended up at Red Hot and Blues which was a lot of fun. We were able to take our time catching up, as MG fell asleep in the stroller (small wonder, she skipped her nap entirely).

We collapsed, again, when we got back to the hotel. All of this recreation is exhausting.

On Saturday we had breakfast with my cousin Brian. We tried not to take up his whole day, because who wants to hang out with their old cousin and her smelly kids when there is a whole world of summer college fun waiting? He was very gracious about spending a few hours of his Saturday with us old farts, though, and it was really nice to catch up with him and hear some of his stories about college.

After breakfast, BJ and the girls and I got the car and headed down to the other half of the Mall, where the WWII memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument are. We parked in that area (since we'd checked out of the hotel by this time), and wandered. Sweet Lord it was hot. I am not even joking when I say that I bought a pair of pants when we got back that was a size smaller than usual, because I lost so much water weight from sweating. It was just ridiculous. We saw a lot of stuff, and then hopped on a bus and rode over to Arlington National Cemetery (I know we know of someone who is buried there - help me remember who. I think it's someone's dad, but heck if I can remember whose dad it is!)

We toured Arlington on the bus, then came back over to D.C. and rode the bus a few more stops before realizing that we were going to get stuck if we rode any farther from our car, as they were closing at 5 pm and throwing everyone off the bus wherever they happened to be. So, we got off of the bus (which sucked, because the tour guide on that one was really good) and walked back to our car. Then we drove to the National Cathedral, just in time for it to close. We'll have to keep that on the list for next time.

After leaving the National Cathedral, we hit the road and drove straight through to home. Ugh. We left at 5 pm and got home at 6 am. BJ and I took turns sleeping, so we wouldn't have to stop. It was a long haul, but we made it.

Now we're recovering. I should probably go get dressed and do something productive today. Poor BJ is coming down with a cold. And MG has figured out how to open all doors, so I need to go get some babyproofing gear. Either that, or a bit of electric fence. That would work.

A Very O'Hell Vacation

My Dad and "Bonus Mom" have a strong family tradition of having National Lampoon style vacations. Apparently this tradition goes back generations in my Dad's family. When my forefathers and mothers got off of the boat from Ireland, they took a look around Ellis Island, and my great-great-great-grandmother said to my great-great-great-grandfather, "Oh hell, I think I left the oven on in Dublin!"

For the sake of anonymity, this family will heretofore be referred to as the O'Hell family. Not to be confused with my mother's people, the McLates. That's another post.

We had a very O'Hell vacation.

It all started on Tuesday afternoon. I returned from visiting little Cameron and his parents, and when I arrived at the house, both kids were asleep. We were mostly packed, so I told BJ we should "git while the gittin's good" and hit the road. We threw the rest of the stuff in the car and hit the road. Claire didn't love this plan, though. She started crying before we left the driveway. "Shirley she'll go back to sleep when we get on the interstate!" we thought. That Shirley O'Hell gets us in trouble every single time. She didn't. We ended up having to stop before we even got to the Big City in the Middle. It did not bode well.

We persevered. Around 10 pm our friend Ben, who was housesitting for us, called and said that he was locked out of our house. We had locked the screen door to keep MG in, and had failed to unlock it in our haste to get on the road. The key he had fit the door behind the locked screen door. Nuts. So, we helped him break into our house. It's probably not a good idea for me to go into details on the 'net, but it was a process. It is a comfort to know that our house isn't easy to break into.

Once Ben got inside, he found that there was water on the floor in the hall. Apparently Culligan had capped something off incorrectly when they removed our expensive water softener by the month thingie, and it leaked under the wall and into the hall. Culligan came out at 11 pm to fix it. It was a long night for Ben, and this whole time we were on the road in the next state over thinking, "Should we go back??"

We drove until it wasn't safe to drive anymore, and made it to Pennsylvania, where we gave up and stopped for the night. We slept as fast as we could, and went to McDonald's the next morning for breakfast. There was a Playplace, and we thought it would be a good idea for MG to run off a little steam before we put her back in the car for 3 or 4 hours. Unfortunately, we let her drink her chocolate milk first and then play, and she yakked all over herself, the play place, and her Daddy.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that BJ had spilled his coffee, too, on the way to the table, so it was a two mop visit to Mickey Dee's. BJ said, "Let's get out of here before they run us out of town on a rail!"

Things started to settle down as we got closer to D.C. Thanks to the GPS, we made it to our hotel without incident. Our hotel was, in a word, funky.

D.C. is weird. The license plates say "Taxation without Representation." You'll be in a really nice neighborhood, and then you'll turn a corner and you're in a really not nice neighborhood. And, for a city where a lot of tourists go, they're really unused to seeing babies. Especially pretty babies like mine. Ha ha... We were fawned all over, mostly by 20-something women who appeared to be reluctantly putting their careers ahead of any plans for a family (judging by the power suits, the lack of wedding rings, and the over-enthusiasm for people in diapers that I observed).

When we got there, BJ went down to the conference to register, and the girls and I got settled in the hotel and took a nap. He returned, and we went off in search of dinner. We ended up at McCormick and Schmick's, which was extremely good. It kind of made Red Lobster look like Long John Silver's. I had the stuffed salmon (Oh. My. God.) and BJ had the Crab Étouffée. Even better than the food, though, was our waitress Jamie. She made us feel like guests in her home, and I told her so. It was a fantastic meal.

After dinner, we walked down to the White House, around the Old Executive Office Building, around the front of the White House, and up past the Treasury Building. Some guy was talking to the security guard (apparently he didn't know the difference between "tour guide" and "security guard"). He asked the guard, "Where does the president spend most of his time?" and I called, "Texas!" over my shoulder, but that was the closest I got to any sort of political statement. This is pretty good, considering my normal outspokenness and my politics.

Moving right along... The following day, Thursday, was BJ's conference, so he got up early and went to Arlington, while the girls and I headed to the National Zoo.

The zoo kicked my ass.

It's beautiful, and it's free which is just incredible. It's part of the Smithsonian (and I never knew what a national treasure the Smithsonian was until I saw all the museums, the zoo, etc. Wow. I could spend years there, trying to take it all in. Just incredible...). The zoo goes gradually downhill, though, so by the time you're good and tired, you've got to walk all the way back up again. And that's just about the right time for MG to decide that she's hungry, so I hauled ass up the hill, pushing MG and carrying Claire in the sling. It was about 100 degrees and SO humid. I thought I was going to die. At one point, a woman offered to help by pushing the stroller, but I said, "No thanks, it's the only thing holding me up right now."

I'm pretty sure I got heat exhaustion. I was sweating buckets. It was just gross. And the water in our hotel didn't get as cold as you'd hope when you're dying of heat exhaustion, which prevented me from taking a really cold shower when we got back. Looking back, that's probably good, because I would've probably cooled myself off too quickly and gotten sick. As it was, I just had a headache and was nauseated, but it went away once I got cool.

Now you're thinking, "Well, Shirley (there she is again!) she learned her lesson that day and didn't overdo it on Friday or Saturday!"

Yeah, right.

I'm going to have to do this in installments, though, because I've been writing this all day and I'm tired. I'll find the cord for the camera, too, so I can include pictures with the next installment.

For now, we're home safe and sound. I'm sure it will take me 6 months to get the girls back into our normal routine!

Headin' up, movin' out

Alright, I get it. Audience participation is not your thing. Fine. No more of that foolishness. Although I'm still hoping for a comment from Gayle-Aunt about when Grandma delivered Alex...

Anyway, we're getting ready to leave, so I'll be quiet today. Wish us luck with the drive!