Not a Kodak Moment

My mom is in town for a whole week, which is pretty amazing considering she had to leave my dad home alone without a sitter. In honor of her visit, we have decided to discover as much of Washington, D.C. as we can cram into a single week. Hopefully Dad will eat something other than Sloppy Joe's while she is gone. (Brothers, if you're reading this, please feed Dad.)  Either way, we plan on having as much fun as we can stand.

Thanks to Mom's planning and her persistent emails, we were personally invited to tour the White House. And since it was highly educational and because I wanted to, I let Jacob skip school today to tag along. I hope no one turns me over to the Falls Church truancy officer.

We had a great time on the tour, but unfortunately, cameras are prohibited within the mansion. For that matter, purses and bags are prohibited too. And so are strollers (but I'll get to that later). And for future tourists reading this that might be thinking of bringing a can of aerosol spray in your pants, that's prohibited too. I was particularly distressed about having to leave my knitting needles at home, but they were specifically on the list of prohibited items, so I accommodated the Secret Service's knitting phobia. I guess I'll have to finish Chris's new sweater this weekend.  I also learned that no matter how patriotic I think I am, President Obama would not be waving sparklers around with me while I toured his home. Fireworks are completely off limits. 

Speaking of President Obama, I can't believe that he would invite me to his home and then not even show up to greet me. How rude! And to add insult to injury, the Secret Service tour guide kept telling us over and over again not to touch anything. I wonder how that kind of hospitality would go over with guests at my home. Of course, my ancient furniture isn't worth millions, and my guests probably wouldn't be that excited about sitting on my couch anyway, even if Oakwood got me new cushions.

But back to the White House. We learned lots of interesting facts that I won't disclose here, and the best part was that Jacob was paying attention. Just ask him about the painting of George Washington or how Abigail Adams did the laundry.

We were able to snap a couple of fuzzy photos with our cellphones outside the White House. The rest of the tour will only be fuzzily preserved in our memories.


We also went to the top of the Washington Monument for the first time. There was very little wait time to go up, and the view from the top was amazing. Now we can check that off Jacob's to-do list, even if we were without cameras to document it.

After the Washington Monument, we exchanged Jacob for Andrew, thanks to Chris making a quick trip into the city for this purpose. Kudos to Chris for packing a lunch for us, but it only vaguely dulled my irritation at him for forgetting the stroller. Even with my sling, hauling a 20-pound baby around for four hours was exhausting, to say the least. We took in the Holocaust Museum and the Museum of American History before we admitted fatigue and headed home for the day.

I'm beat, but at least we have these surprising, photographic gems to document our fun.














Don't I look pretty?