White House Easter Egg Roll

After three years of coming up empty-handed in the White House Easter Egg Roll lottery, 2014 was finally our year!  By the end, it completely won me over.

4-21-14 - White House Easter Egg Roll

However, it started out rough.  9,000 people packed like cows in a feedlot, then some walking, then another staging area for 30 minutes in the hot sun and THEN, we were allowed onto the glorious White House lawn, which was also packed with people.

That + 2 young children = almost assured disaster

Waiting

Not quite there yet

Still Waiting

We're In!

Once we got in, we walked right up to the Egg Roll, which was listed under "classics" in the program.  While standing in line in the shadow of the Oval Office, out came a handful of staffers with none other than Sunny & Bo, the First Dogs!  Once I caught my first glimpse of someone famous, there was no going back.  This was a fun event!

Sunny & Bo

Alison did the Easter Egg Roll:

Eggcellent Technique

She also did an obstacle course, listened to someone from American Idol sing, saw an astronaut, got her picture with the Cat in the Hat, decorated a shirt, and learned about organic gardening.  Maddie hung out in my pouch just as cool as a cucumber.  She is the best baby!

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Michelle's Organic Garden

There was a lot more to do, but we'd had our fun and were hungry for more than just the free peeps they handed out.  So by 6pm we wandered out and picked up our souvenir wooden eggs.

In the car on the way home I posed this question to Nathan, "So, are we going to enter the lottery next year?"  He just laughed, which I think meant, "Of course!"  By then we'll have forgotten about the crowds and will only remember how cool it was to see two famous dogs.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens is a great little spot where, each July, lotus flowers and water lilies blossom in abundance amid what are natural wetlands-turned-water-garden, right in the middle of the East Side of DC.  We visited on one hot morning and found the walk to the boardwalk and around the gardens to be surprisingly beautiful!  Not only were the flowers amazing, the wildlife (butterflies, birds, dragonflies, etc) was abundant.  Here are some of the shots I got with my new camera:

 

"Snow Storm"

Snow!

I can't say we didn't know what we were getting into when we moved here.  In February 2010, we visited my brother-in-law during "Snowmageddon".  That time, DC got over 32 inches of snow during a two-part snowstorm.  We were on one of the first flights into Reagan National after the airport was reopened and after the government had been shut down for an entire week - due to 20 of the 32 inches of snow.  I happened to switch flights on the way home to an earlier one and ended up escaping just before the second snow wave pummeled the capital.  We had arrived from Minnesota and North Dakota, and the amount of snow that shut down DC for a week was laughable.  So, even before we moved here, we knew that DC is filled with a bunch of wusses.

Last winter, the only accumulating snow occurred on January 9th.  For one glorious evening, we had enough snow to build a small snowman that was melted by the time we left for the bus the next morning.

This past Wednesday was going to be the next big one.  The weather channel had a name for it, but everyone in DC simply called it Snowquester, after the furlough period that started last week.  One headline declared it the biggest snowfall in two years.  By the time we left work on Tuesday, everyone knew that the next day would be a "telecommuting only" sort of day.  The government is incredibly good at shutting down the commute if any hint of weather is possible.  It is a good safety measure given that we have the worst traffic congestion in the United States.

The build-up for 5-8 inches of snow was very exciting and we scrabbled to put together a makeshift sled for Alison made out of the lid from one of our storage containers.  In the morning on Wednesday, we did actually have snow!  Maybe two inches of it, but it was also....raining?  Then it snowed, then it rained, then, well, I don't know what was happening. We went out at lunch and built the wettest snowman I've ever seen.  We tried to sled down the hill in the backyard, but couldn't go more than a foot without stopping in the mud.

Grandma & Alison Getting Ready to Play

Alison in the Snow

Snowman

Grandma's Snowsaurus

 By Thursday afternoon all that was left were lonely snowmen in every front yard with their hats and eyes strewn about and their bodies sagging.  The Capital Weather Gang summed up the whole experience nicely with their Ode to Snowquester. 

At least Alison will know what snow is as she grows older, she just won't know what it means to have a real snow storm.

Sequestration

I have no idea what the rest of the country thinks about Sequestration.  Do you think about it?  Is it all your papers and local radio stations talk about?  Since I live in the DC bubble, it's hard to ignore it. All of the neighbors we slug in with work for DOD or TSA or Homeland Security.  Everyone is facing furloughs, some once per pay period and others will be hit every week.  There have been threats that if they use their Blackberries on furlough days that they will face legal action.  It's forced, unpaid vacation time!

In this pre-furlough honeymoon period, everyone is really upbeat about it.  By everyone, I mean all the real people I talk to - not official press notices from the White House or that economist from the FTC that keeps giving interviews.  I suspect the allure of an extra vacation day every-other-week over the summer is enough to make you forget about the impact to your paycheck.

It took me a while to realize that Nathan is a Federal employee and would likely be impacted.  However, every agency determines its own cost-savings measures.  The National Park Service has an abundance of seasonal employees, so the rumors circulating are that most parks will hire less Rangers for the summer instead of furloughing employees, if they have that choice.  While that lets the permanent employees breathe a sigh of relief, that could mean longer lines at park entrances and visitor centers, fewer facilities open, and definitely less hikes with a Ranger.  That grizzly bear you really wanted to see at Glacier National Park?  Well, he's right over there, but you missed him because you didn't have a guide familiar enough with the terrain to spot him.

In Virginia, an estimated 90,000 Department of Defense employees will lose over $600 million in income.  Most of that is right here in Northern Virginia where we live.  You can compare your state's cuts right here.  I'm almost more worried about the $3-4 million reduced in each state for "clean air and water".  What does that even mean?  I really want to keep my clean air and water.

You might think that, being in the midst of Sequestration Fever, I think it's BS like everyone else.  Except that deep down, I don't.  I really want the government to make smart cuts so that we can balance the budget.  I want to spend less on war and more on STEM education and rebuilding our energy infrastructure with a smart grid that uses renewable fuels.  These are things that will really benefit future generations.  These are the things I want.  But we are so polarized right now that we can't come together for the common good.  Instead of every Congressman (or woman) getting a team of real experts who can help guide them in making policy decisions, we have lobbyists: paid influencers that could care less which issue they push as long as it keeps their personal bank accounts flowing.  So, while I think that semi-blind, automatic cuts are a giant cop-out, it might be the only way to get us moving in the right direction, given our current circumstances.

In the mean time, I'm just going to be glad that I love our new house and wouldn't mind being stuck here for a long time.  We'll see what the real Sequestration impact is and, if we have to, we can always start our own business spotting grizzly bears.

Blossom Time

It's that time of year again!  Time for crowds, increased traffic, tourists, eighth graders, and the trees that in spite of all that, make living here well worth it: cherry blossoms.  I was able to see the tidal basin at peak bloom two days last week, right before a rainstorm came and knocked all the blossoms to the ground.  If you didn't make it to DC, here's your tidal basin tour.

MLK

Washington Monument

Resident Ducks

Jefferson

Blossoms!

FDR

MLK

I love it when people visit because it gives me a good excuse to wander around the National Mall.  Two days after Alison's birthday and only one full week after it opened to the public, I stood in front of a towering Martin Luther King, Jr staring at me with a stern look on his face that could only mean: our work in this country to improve civil liberties is not finished.

Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope

It was crowded, and probably the most diverse crowd I've ever seen in a National Park.  I most enjoyed bumping into our favorite ranger, who had wandered over after a failed attempt to gather people for a bird hike.

Ranger Nathan King who gets asked often if he is related to MLK.

That day we also discovered a great place to cool our feet and relax...

 National Sculpture Garden Fountain

...and Alison enjoyed wandering around the FDR memorial with her grandparents.

Maybe next time I'll be able to successfully talk someone into paddle-boating on the tidal basin with me!

Newseum

The Newseum is a privately-run museum in DC and despite its $22/adult price tag, I'd always heard great things about it.  For the first time in its history, it was free last weekend to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of September 11th.

There are a couple of sites around DC where they very clearly have money and aren't afraid to spend it.  The Newseum is one of those.  It is seven floors of news, news history, movies, interactive games, and shops with a giant glass elevator running from the basement to the 6th floor.  At the top they have a terrace with an amazing view of the Capital.  Inside there were a few gems and a few things that made me angry.

First, I should preface this with the disclosure that lately I haven't been very happy with the media.  While I wholeheartedly support free speech, I also support fact-checking and honest reporting.  Sensationalizing every little story just to sell it has driven our economy deeper into recession, further polarized the country, and is just plain fear mongering.  I think our media is out of control and it's time for them to self-regulate a little better.   One trip out of the country and you'll realize how self-centered and off-center our media really is.

The Newseum generally reflects this industry standard by devoting huge areas of the museum to their most successful stories, mainly September 11th and Hurricane Katrina.  They praise themselves throughout for using their right to free speech for good, "Look at us, we trudge through the backcountry and risk our lives to bring you the news.  We're the first ones to get to the biggest stories.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah."  I was not impressed, but it did get more interesting as it went along.

There are a few things well-worth coming to see.

First, they have the largest chunk of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany.

 Berlin Wall

They also have the broadcast antenae from the top of one of World Trade Towers set in front of a backdrop of worldwide front pages from 9/12/01.

 9/11 - The Newseum's favorite subject

There is a memorial to journalists who have died in action with some interesting details about where they were and why.  My favorite room was probably the News History room, where they have front pages from newspapers dating back to 1455 (you can see the front page from when the Spanish Armada was defeated!).  I also enjoyed this exhibit on worldwide freedom of the press.

  It turns out in addition to having the best education, quality of life, and health care system, Finland also has the most freedom of the press.  Should we move?

Alison liked the tour of a real-life news studio (ABC Weekend Something...) and the exhibit on the presidents' dogs.  There are also theaters galore, including a 4D show (which I was scared would include very lifelike paparazzi running after you), and an entire floor of interactive news games where you could report on your own story and post it to youtube (for a price).

By the time I was done, my anger at the press had subsided and I was happy to have seen the museum.  Was it worth the $22?  Not unless you've already seen ALL of the free museums and are incredibly hungry for some drama.

Earthquake Spam

It's true that when something happens to the East Coast, that's all the rest of the country gets to hear about on the news.  It's because we (I mostly mean the East Coast-based news media) are all pretty self-involved and a bit over-dramatic.  We had an earthquake this week and thanks to all the facebook spam from your friends on the East Coast, you know.  So, while Peru just had a 7.0-magnitude earthquake which blows ours out of the water, I'd like to obsess about our 5.8er this week.

I was in my cube on the 4th floor of our 7-story building on Tuesday (prime earthquake flattening location now that I think about it), when things started to shake.  I'd asked someone when we moved if we ever got earthquakes here.  They said no, so my my train of thought went something like this:

Whoa.
Are we in an earthquake?  No. They don't have those here.
Oh crap, I'm in DC, probably a bomb.
Well, I'm still alive, so that's good news.
I'm sure they would have bombed the National Mall, but Nathan's at MLK - he's probably OK.
Um.  What the hell? This thing is still going?  Holy sh*t this is getting bad.
Holy sh*t what do I do in an earthquake?  Doorway!  Wait, get out of here?
I never learned where the stairwells were in this building.  That was stupid.
No time to move if this thing is going to collapse it'll do it before I leave.
Doorframe, get to the DOORFRAME.  Could this building collapse?
HOLY CRAP IS THIS THING GOING TO COLLAPSE, I NEED TO LEA - phew, it stopped.

We evacuated.  (What I should have known to do right away.) 

Our street during the evacuation.

No phones worked, no internet.  It was pretty hard to get information.  Having never been in an earthquake, I guessed it would be about a 4.0 based on the fact that everything was still standing.  When I found out it was closer to 6.0, I felt kind of proud that I'd been through that.  It was thrilling, in retrospect.

Luckily, in a city ill-equipped for earthquakes, not much damage was reported except to the National Cathedral and Washington Monument, a structure Nathan says he won't go back into unless they give him an option to buy more life insurance.  Lovely.  A few things fell off the shelves in our house and pictures were skewed, but luckily Alison and Grandma went right outside and Alison really enjoyed seeing everyone in the building in one place.

Photo Credit: Nathan King

It took me two hours to get home.  In order to inspect the entire Metro railway system, trains moved at 15 mph for the rest of the day.  I stood on the crowded platform at Farragut West and watched three over-crowded trains go by before I decided to go the opposite direction, then get on at a less-crowded stop.  That worked.  Just as I thought my commute couldn't get any worse, however, there I was, stuck in a super-crowded railcar going 1/4 of its normal speed when I saw it.  The largest spider I'd seen since Kansas crawling up the girl's skirt next to me.  I couldn't move away - too many people.  This might be very close to my worst nightmare, but it wasn't the scariest thing that happened that day.

So, today, as Hurricane Irene creeps up from the South, I'm creating an emergency/evacuation kit.  I guess you can never be too careful.  It's also my opinion that you can never have too much SPAM.

Three Hour Radius

There are close to 5 million things to do within a three-hour radius of DC.  In the past month, we've started to explore a few of the gems outside of DC.

Manassas

Manassas National Battlefield Park is the site of two civil war battles, most notably the first battle of the entire war.  It is located just 25 miles from DC, which is truly interesting when you think about how close that really was to our nation's capital.  It's neat to learn about the battles via a short walk down to a stone house that stood long before the war arrived at its doorstep and via a driving tour with stops at important battle points.  It's hard to imagine troops moving through this hilly, forested area without cell phones to communicate with commanders.  At one point the troops only realized that fighting was about to begin when they noticed the sun glistening off the bayonets of an approaching mass of enemy soldiers coming up a hill very close to where they stood.

 3-12-11 - Stone House @ Manassas

I would recommend a visit and while you're there, stop for breakfast at Yorkshire Restaurant in the town of Manassas. Yuuuummy!

Chimborazo Hospital

In Richmond, they've preserved the largest confederate general hospital from the civil war: Chimborazo.  It's interesting to learn about the fact that women, slave and free blacks, all worked together with men to save lives.  There's a museum and movie in the Visitor Center, but the best part about this site is the park.  It's on a hill overlooking parts of Richmond.  Great place to bring your lunch and enjoy the view!

3-26-11 - Chimborazo Visitor Center

Maggie L. Walker (Richmond)

Maggie L. Walker was one of the earliest and most successful black, female entrepreneurs in our nation.  She built a local banking empire, taking its parent organization from an impoverished community with $400 in debt to a thriving one worth over $400,000.  Her house is preserved with 95% of the furnishings she owned still intact.  The staff at this site are amazing and will take you on an excellent tour of the house and a museum in her honor.

3-26-11 - Maggie L Walker's House

Fort Ward

Of course, we've been exploring close to home as well.  My favorite place to stroll with Allie in Alexandria is Fort Ward, which used to be one of the Forts protecting DC during the civil war era.  They still have part of the earthen fort set-up as it once was and a museum that you can walk through for free.  The best part is the walking path around the park and the fact that they have an amphitheater for concerts in the summer.

3-18-11 - Fort Ward Gate

Sakura

We've all heard of it and now Nathan actually works at it, but could the Cherry Blossoms in DC really be that great?  Yes, yes they can.  I went to view the trees on March 25th, a day before the actual festival began.  It's really nice to have someone with the inside scoop because, although it wasn't a sunny day, I got to see the trees at near peak bloom with a fraction of the people there that usually come for the festival.  I guess I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

 Almost makes you forget you're in a city.

Human progress meets nature.

The Forest

Just the two of us!

Washington Monument

DC: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

We are finally in our new location: Alexandria, VA!!  We have been here for just over two weeks, but a first impression is a lasting impression, so here's what I think.


The Good

Let me paint a picture of why this place is amazing.

I got into my car last Saturday at 11:15am and the local NPR station was playing my favorite show: Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me.  I drove five minutes to pick-up my very first Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) box which included all kinds of yummy, organic produce from local farms.  Outside the restaurant that organizes the CSA (called Food Matters - I have yet to try it out, but it looks great), a troop of girl scouts sold me my first six boxes of cookies for the year.  Later that day, we all got in the car, picked up Nathan's brother, Justin, and visited the National Zoo - for free.

My first CSA bag - complete with wildflower honey!

Flamingos at the National Zoo

There are literally one thousand adventures to be had waiting for me at my doorstep every day.  I don't need to go very far - heck, I don't even have to drive to get anywhere if I don't want to.  The possibilities are endless.  I feel like I could go anywhere and do anything here, using DC as my launching pad. 

 View of the National Mall from the Mt. Vernon Trail

In Rochester, I had to join a special group to practice speaking Spanish.  Here, I've had to use my Spanish just to get around and talk to my neighbors.

In Kansas, we lived in a construction zone and I feared that Alison might kill herself if she started moving on her own through that house.  Now, there is crown molding in our apartment and everything was updated as of a couple years ago.

People are very open-minded here because they come from all corners of the country.  The DC Badgers alumni group sends me almost daily event emails, whereas in Kansas, the only other Badger in the area had an asterisk by his name claiming he had died in 1994.

The Bad

Could there BE any more people here?  Every single nook and cranny of this area is overflowing with people.  People on the roads, people in the stores, people in the restaurants.  Big people, small people, people of every background.  If there were a nuclear holocaust and we were all forced to find our own food, there would be around a 1000 to 1 human-to-squirrel ratio and we would surely all die of starvation.

I miss my view of the bluffs from my front door in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  Yes, we have an amazing top floor view from our new place, but nature trumps urbania.  That is just a fact of life.

Stainless Steel Tree in the National Sculpture Garden

Please don't let this be the future of our natural world! (Although it IS really neat!)

The Ugly

Picture the largest freeway you've ever seen.  Then picture it full of cars during rush hour.  Now double the amount of cars on the road.  Add people who learned how to drive in places like Rochester, MN where they do not know how to drive. Then add a few tourists.  Now have someone tell you the traffic is only really bad during rush hour. Now picture yourself maming that person because they are completely, horribly wrong.

Traffic is awful here.  The infrastructure just can't handle the people and drivers have to pull crazy stuff just to get where they need to be.  Stop lights last for days.  It's best to just stay out of your car.  Period.