Apr 26
Everyone,
I finally got around to uploading all of my pictures…all 299 of them. (From the week my parents were here, not 299 at the White House Easter Egg Roll.) Here are all the kids doing the roll. Straight out of the camera since it took over an hour to move the pictures from the cards to the computer. Enjoy!
Safire
Sunday Pictures, White House Easter Egg Roll
Apr 13
Everyone,
Today was the Easter Egg Roll 2009. I was so excited about going. I think I must have told my family about it several times in the last few days. It was just so much fun last time.
So. Let’s start at the beginning.
We stayed in the very nice (with a very sparkly lobby…lots of chandeliers) hotel downtown. Our view was amazing. You could see the Ellipse (the grassy area outside the White House, normally where we would be camping out) from the window. The Washington Monument was standing tall. I was up early enough to watch the sun rise. (Again! That makes it 2 times this week I’ve been downtown for the sun rise. It’s lovely.) I sat in my very quiet hotel room, sipped my very good hot chocolate and just enjoyed the moment. Refreshing.
We didn’t get the boys to bed last night until around 8:30pm. That’s 2 and a half hours after their normal bed time. We had them set up in the closet in our hotel room so they would be alone and actually sleep. Juice made a tent out of some extra sheets and it seemed quite cozy. If only the boys thought so too. They screamed pretty hard to sleep. Butterfly didn’t get to sleep until after 10pm. She is a loud sleeper. Professor woke up around 4am screaming. I brought him to bed with me and fed him in hopes he would fall back asleep. Nope. For a good hour he crawled all over me, poked in fingers up my nose, and generally wanted to play. He finally fell back asleep on the bed and I got another half hour or so of sleep before I had to wake up for breakfast.
I am a little jealous of Juice and all the traveling (without the kids) he gets to do for business. So I figured I would treat myself just a tiny bit to room service breakfast. Boy am I glad I did! I only ate half of it, with thoughts of sharing with everyone else. Juice had a few bites, Butterfly ate the rest.
We rushed out to the Egg Roll and had to walk so far around. I kept expecting to see tents like they had 2 years ago when we went. And an outdoor concert that you don’t have to have tickets to see. 2 years ago they had breakfast for everyone outside. We were anticipating that and no one else had eaten.
We walked through a ton of lines, but they weren’t too terrible. We scanned those hard earned tickets and said goodbye to Juice and my parents (no luck sneaking them in and yes we did think about it). It was very crowded and I think I told my sister in law (Angel) that it seemed more crowded than last year. We had a potty break, a baby break, and a few other breaks before we actually got into the venues.
We headed right for the egg roll and I was shocked at the huge line. Last time we walked right up, no line. I think we rolled our eggs twice back then. I figured it must be the first thing everyone was going to so we headed away from the White House to find something else to do.
Butterfly was cross. She was hungry I think. I kept expecting candy at the exits of all the little things they have. Nothing. Not even raisins. Just a lot of posters. Butterfly flatly refused to make a jump rope (I wanted her too, they looked cool!) but seemed to perk up at the prospect of face painting. The line was short. She got a blue and white egg on her cheek.
We glanced at the line for the egg hunt. Way way too long. We decided to go back up to the egg roll and try our hand at that. On the way, we took a few pictures in front of the White House (other people took them) and met one of the lesser known presidents…I can’t remember which one. We posed for a picture together but the photographer is obviously camera inept because the picture is not there. I don’t think he pushed the button down hard enough.
Back to the egg roll. The line was worse than before. And we only had an hour or so left to hang out there before they were reportedly going to kick us out. We decided to hang out in line and do the roll since that is what we got tickets to do. Butterfly amused herself by stacking the yoga blocks into a tower and knocking them down. Several times. We waited in that line for 45 minutes. Gah.
When we got there, they were rushing around trying to get people through as fast as possible. I hauled out my boys (Pirate was so tired and sleeping in the top of my stroller and Professor had just woken up from an hour long nap) and put them down in front of an egg. They stared at it. They looked at the spoon. And then the grass. And then Pirate laid down on the grass and started sucking his thumb.
Butterfly whacked her egg pretty good but kept whacking it out of her line. Then she threw a fit because she was not the winner. Sigh. There was no candy to appease her either! I made her go back up to the top of the roll so I could get some pictures of the boys. The people told me I had to go since the next race was starting. I told them no, laid down on the grass and took some pictures of the boys. They are not good pictures. But they will have to do. We were there through another race and Butterfly didn’t want to try again.
By now, they had made the announcement that we needed to clear the lawn. What?! We had been there maybe 2 hours and had done basically nothing. Juice reminds me that I waited in lines. Yes, we did. We also listened to the Imagination Movers and saw Handy Manny from the back.
I finally shoved Butterfly to the front of the line with the jump rope making and took a rope for her and an extra. I filled my pockets with beads to build the rope and they told us we had to leave. Fine. Be that way.
We joined the mass exodus out of the egg roll. I was excited for this part because last time we got a big goody bag and a book and a wooden egg. This time, we left with no goody bag. Not even an egg! I had to ask where they were doing that and they had blocked off a parking lot outside of the White House grounds to pass out eggs. Only the kids got eggs. Adults did not get one. But I think this might be the first year that you can buy eggs so I bought one for my Mom to match what the kids got. I wish she could have gone with us.
In summary, I think the Easter Egg Roll is feeling pressure from the economy too. No candy, no goody bags, no books. TONS more people, a lot more lines. More structure, less fun.
Still it was an experience. I think I will try to get tickets again next year. If it’s like this, I have a few strategies. One of the reasons why everyone had to leave was that they weren’t going to give you an egg unless you exited within 15 minutes of the closing time. That suggests to me that they don’t MAKE you leave. If you miss out on getting your egg, you can just buy one like we did. I would stay through the exit and make sure we were able to do everything. I would only get the earliest tickets of the day because I hear from a few of my friends that went that they waited 2 hours to get in and only got to spend 45 minutes on the lawn. Not long enough to do anything. I would also feed everyone more food and get more sleep.
I really do hope that since this is the Obamas’ first Egg Roll that things will improve. But this time around, kinda sucked. Too many people, too little time.
The rest of the day was spent feeding everyone and getting back home. We are all exhausted from the “fun”. Still, the boys did great, and Butterfly did as expected.
More fun will be had tomorrow, and probably a lot less to say. (Anie, this post is for you.)
Safire
PS- Pictures later, I’m tired!
Apr 07
Everyone,
The mouse is dead! The mouse is dead! Icky too. Juice put it in the dirty diaper pail outside. It creeps me out every time I have to put a dirty diaper in there but there was no where else to put it until garbage day. I’m just glad it’s not summer.
It is SO not summer. In fact, it snowed today! It’s crazy cold for this time of year. Thanks Mom and Dad, for bringing winter back with you. 
The flowering trees do look enchanting with all the snow drifting down. Sadly, no pictures as I was driving furiously home from the park. Too cold to play today!
I am thinking of getting a few blueberry bushes to live in pots for us. Anyone have experience growing blueberries? Anyone?
I spent the afternoon on the phone with different people setting up stuff for the boys’ birthday. I am so excited to celebrate one whole year! And I’m so happy we survived it.
I had to change Butterfly’s clothes 4 times today. That girl is pushing the potty limits. She obviously doesn’t know where the potty limits are since she went over them 4 times today. She is also pushing MY limits because this is driving me crazy!
Even though the conformation email says that my White House Easter Egg Roll Tickets will be emailed to me April 6-8th, they have not come yet. I am slightly worried. I guess they still have about 28 hours left to email me. I will probably call the company tomorrow and check because that would suck if I didn’t actually get any tickets. Especially since I have a conformation email and number.
Only 52 hours until my parents get here! (Give or take a few hours…I kind of got side tracked around hour #40.) I’m excited to see them again and have a week of fun filled exploration. Weather permitting, the airplane park, the cherry blossoms, the zoo, and the Lincoln Paper display are all on the list. Weather not permitting includes a few museums and probably the mall.
I have been so wrapped up in Operation Destroy Mouse and All Available Entrances To Warm House for Rodents that I haven’t done any cleaning. Mostly I am cleaning to find my metro pass. It’s around here somewhere…I’m just not sure where.
More on ODM&AAETWHR later, including cement. This should be fun. (Know what else would be fun? Playing godfather with the mice…putting their little feet in tiny cement blocks and pushing them off the pier of the local lake. Too cruel?)
Safire
Butterfly, my family, P and P birthday, pests and critters, plants and flowers, randomness, snow, spring, White House Easter Egg Roll
Mar 26
Everyone,
The scene: My parents are traveling to see us the week of April 13th for the boys first birthday week! Guess what else is that week? Easter! And Easter in DC means The White House Easter Egg Roll. And camping out in front of the White House for tickets.
The decision: Let’s all go to the Roll! My parents books flights and hotels in preparation for camping out. We talk to other local moms and have it all planned out. My sil and Cappy are coming too! We are excited to go!
The email: Two days ago my friend (you know who you are…hi!) emailed me that they were changing the rules this year! NO MORE CAMPING OUT. Instead…online. Ooo-kaaay. I was miffed because camping out was fun! But then I thought, hey, this means more time with my family while they are here! Yay!
The worry: What do they mean by ONLINE? How are they going to manage this? Is it a lottery? Is it a registration? And when? Midnight? 8am? Will we all get tickets? What if we don’t?
The reality: Even though I’m sick, I stayed up till midnight last night. No tickets. I finally had to go to bed around 1am. The boys woke up at 6:30am. Juice was out cold because he took Nyquil (lucky duck) and Butterfly was also out cold. I gather up the boys and came down to my computer.
Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.
They opened up the website at around 8am. I thought I had them! I got in, selected the tickets, and was stopped by a word verification. Then, there were no tickets left. What?! What was going on? After browsing several blogs, I discovered that it was a lottery. Only the people who were lucky enough to get past the word verification actually got tickets. And they were putting them up through out the day.
So, I hunkered down, and hit refresh about 10 billion times. Around 11am, they came out again. No luck. 2pm, again, no luck!
Then about 7pm, I was talking to my mom about it and hitting refresh, as I did ALL DAY LONG. And then, word verification came up. And went through!
You are looking at the proud owner of 6 whole tickets! I am so pleased.
My parents were not that lucky.
I have 6 tickets. There are 4 kids, and 5 adults in our party. I have 6 tickets. I am being selfish. I want to go. The kids are going no question.
Stupid CHANGE.
Safire
Feb 12
Everyone,
It’s that time of week again. Time for KitKat to come over. Yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL day with highs in the 70′s. It seriously felt like spring. I had all the windows open until about 7pm at night (6pm for the boys room when they went to sleep) and we basked in the fresh air. Too bad it was really muddy out or we would have gone to spend time on our grass.
I do think it’s odd that it’s 70 in February.
Anyway, I was upstairs doing a diaper change and I hear Butterfly screaming downstairs, “It’s KitKat! It’s KitKat!” She was so excited to have her “special friend, only my friend, not yours Moothar” come and play. The boys napped weirdly yesterday due to the doctor visit (see post again, pictures!) so as soon as she got here, I put them down.
Butterfly is going to a few Valentine’s parties tomorrow so I needed some Valentines for all of her little friends. So I gave them tape, markers, scissors, and paper and a list of who to make them out to. They spent a good 45 minutes cutting and coloring and drawing. KitKat made some really cute sayings and Butterfly colored several for herself. Oh, and one for me and Juice and one for KitKat. So cute.
I was very good this week and talked to my mom for an hour while KitKat played with Butterfly. My mom and I normally talk on Thursday nights but I have a girls night out tonight and next week is book club. So we decided on during the day.
Of course, a ton of people called me while I was talking, the boys woke up and tried to eat the phone on numerous occasions, my nephew Cappy bit my mom a few times, but we talked. We made some definitive plans for their trip here in April and talked about the White House Easter Egg roll. You local gals, interested in going with us? We had a blast 2 years ago.
I felt like my time was well used, and KitKat’s too. I think I may like having a helper!
Safire
Jan 30
Everyone,
I was thinking about it and I have not driven my car all week long. Nope, I lied. I went to the Metro on Monday morning and the Chinese Food store (what Butterfly calls it) that evening. But yeah, I haven’t driven the car in 4 days at least. And since Juice has been riding the Metro and taking the bus every day, we’re saving money! And gas! And the environment! Yay for us!
Then why do I feel like a hermit these days? Oh, yeah. Right. Freezing cold temps, twins, a pre-schooler, and no motivation. My get up and go is on the fritz right now. I think I used it all up on the Inauguration. (I just love typing that word now that I know how to spell it.) It could also be that my shirt (and hair sometimes) is covered in snot from two runny little noses. Or it could be because I’ve been spit up on more times than I can count this morning so now I have a slightly foul smell following me around.
But I did get a shower today so that’s a win. Well, I was clean before the spit up and the snot.
I am going to drive the car this evening to get out so that’s also a win. Maybe after I change my clothes…
I spent an exhilarating night last night talking to my mom on the phone. We are busy planning their semi-annual trip to visit us. Highlights this year will include sleeping on the Ellipse in front of the White House for Easter Egg roll tickets, the zoo, Mt. Vernon, Easter Sunday, and the boys’ first birthday. We are going to have a ball, as we always do.
Juice is going hiking with the Boy Scouts tomorrow so I am on my own yet again. I think I may take the kids to the mall and do some window shopping and have a little lunch. That is, if I can shut my brain off from planning planning planning tonight in bed.
Maybe that’s where all my get up and go is. The future!
Safire
PS- Professor has learned how to clap and it’s so adorable! And Pirate will come and lay his head on my foot and suck his thumb. Also adorable!
planning, Professor mile stones, White House Easter Egg Roll