Week Three in DC

So I decided that in order to finish up the blog, I really needed to talk less and keep it short. However, this is NOT the week to do that. This week is our mini-vacation within a vacation.

Thursday, we get up early and head out to Connecticut where my sister Kathleen lives with her family which includes 5 children, three of which are very close to the age of Lucy and Alex. We wanted to leave early enough to avoid rush hour traffic. As it was, there was hardly any on the Beltway heading to Baltimore. Or heading to Philadelphia. Or on the New Jersey Turnpike. Or even really heading into New York. It was such a blessedly smooth ride, we couldn’t believe it. Just a few stops for bathroom breaks, coffee and lunch; we made excellent time.

Kathleen had been in charge of music for their Vacation Bible School program at church. So Friday was their closing ceremony. Her accompanist had a family emergency and was not going to be able to make it, so I went with her to read through their chosen songs and play for the program. I had always escaped doing our VBS at church by being on vacation, but it found me, even in another state. It was fun, and Lucy got to come hang out with the girls for a bit as well.

Saturday, we drove to Greenwich Beach and spent the day there. This was a smaller beach off the sound, so while it did get pretty crowded, it was a little calmer than you might have expected at the coast. It had fantastic “shelters” under which you could set up your blankets. The kids had a wonderful time building a “shell-o-saurus” with grandma. This was Florence’s first trip to the beach – unless you count the time we went to Chincoteaque Island when she was in utero. The kids all really enjoyed playing with each other in the sand and in the waves. We ate lunch there, spending most of the afternoon. We drove through KFC on the way home, fed the exhausted kiddos (the young ones didn’t get their nap) and put them to bed early. Really, the adults didn’t last so long either.

Sunday, I played at Kathleen’s church for the VBS service as well. That afternoon, we celebrated Kinneely’s 6th birthday with a Pet Shop cake and presents that included a pogo stick like Charlie’s and some girly fingernail polish, etc.
On Monday, Kathleen had to go into the city to run a dance rehearsal, so I loaded up Charlie and took him with us. We took the subway from her rehearsal site to FAO Schwartz, then walked to Central Park. Here, we took a horse and carriage ride around the park. It felt amazing to be in the midst of all the lush greenness and to see all the old buildings. Our driver told us stories about which tall buildings had been in which movies. We even bought a hotdog and a pretzel from a vendor and ate it next to all the people selling photographs, tin etchings, and old-fashioned posters. A woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty afforded me a chance to explain about performance art – in NY of all places. Then we went back to FAO Schwartz so that Charlie could dance on the big keyboard from the movie “Big”. We kept looking for the perfect toy souvenir to buy; however they sell toys, not video games, and Charlie couldn’t really find anything he truly wanted that would’ve been worth the effort to carry home. We did enjoy seeing the larger than life-size lego constructions of Batman, Harry Potter and Chewbacca. After that, to complete our NY experience, we caught a cab back to Aunt Kathleen’s rehearsal site. This wasn’t Charlie’s first trip to the big city –he had been there as a baby when I worked with Kathleen on one of her dance programs; however, he is more likely to remember this one.

All in all, it was a wonderful chance for all the cousins to be together and play together. It’s amazing how even though they don’t see each other very often, they just slip into playing together like no time has passed. And every year it gets easier. I enjoyed getting to know little Aislinn Patricia, who was born in December. She was such a super chunk and so good-natured. I guess you have to be when you’re that far down the line. We did the traditional “dress all the girls alike” pictures and all the cousins together, though Kathleen got to really make use of her photoshop skills because getting that many kids to cooperate all at the same time…well, it’s pretty impossible.

Tuesday morning, we headed out to visit a friend of the family: Elmer McDowell. He lives in a small town called Wurtsboro in New York, living on the edge of Wolf Lake in what we came to call his “Log Castle”. He used to live in the neighborhood of my parents in Northern Virginia, and they are still really good friends, but when he retired, he built this place on the lake. Once again, I was so overwhelmed, in a good way, by the lushness of it all. Our trip was relatively smooth, though it pretty much rained the whole way. We found this a little discouraging as we were going only for two days, and we were going to kayak and fish, neither of which would be fun in the rain. Once we got there, after a nice lunch, the sun showed its face long enough for Elmer to take Charlie out on the lake. In the meantime, his girlfriend Marie, took mom to Walmart to pick out jackets for the kids because the rain had brought cooler temperatures. That evening, Elmer cooked out on the grill for us some glorious steaks and hamburgers and probably the most delicious hotdog I’ve ever had. Something about meat cooked outside makes it taste better. While there, Marie gave us the tour of the 5 bedroom, 4 ½ bathroom, 2 story with a loft log cabin, Elmer showed us his complicated computerized system of how the lights work with automatic dimmers. It was funny as we would sit and visit in the evening talking after the kids went to bed, at one point the lights would dim, or one evening, they even went completely out: “Time for bed”. The first night, they took us for a walk on the ‘dam’ of their man-made lake. It was a good chance for the kids to run off some energy after being in the car. The next day proved to be much clearer and the kids got to fish, kayak, and swim at the “beach” to their heart’s content. Even Florence got into a kayak with both mom and me. She didn’t really enjoy it, though I think that was as much due to her impatience at being suited up in a life jacket when we couldn’t figure out how to put it on. Alex caught fish with grandma on the pier while Charlie and Lucy went out in the boat with Elmer. It really was such a beautiful area and setting – I wish our camera could truly capture everything, such as the deer which were comfortable coming right up to the house, or all the birds around his birdfeeders. That night, mom wanted to go to dinner at a local place to eat and Elmer and Marie found the perfect restaurant for us. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name, but it was a place that had been around in some form or other since the building of the canals. I had the best onion rings since we left Alabama, and probably my first tap beer since I left college. Their grilled cheese was even amazing. That evening, we sat around, programming Grandma and Elmer’s new blackberrys…or would it still be blackberries? They both had the same one, and he was able to help her feel more comfortable and less confused about using it. I also taught it how to pick up her email, but then we spent the rest of our trip hearing beeps as each ad from “Plow and Hearth” or “Amazon” came in. It was insane.

The following morning, we had to head back to Grandma’s house. She had tickets to see Carmina Burana at Wolftrap with Poppa and some friends of theirs. We had planned on leaving at 10, and we were pulling out of the driveway at 10:01. Perfect. Or so we thought. Our first rest stop for lunch was at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. We had hoped to find some tables, but had to make due with laying our beach towels on a grassy patch. They only had one working bathroom, which wouldn’t have been a big deal, except that as we were waiting to go, a church van pulled up with no less than 18 people that needed to go. We laughed as a few of the men made use of some local bushes. We already knew from driving around that there was NOWHERE else to go at this exit, and one of the kids really had to go, so we waited our turn. This made our first stop over an hour. Oh well, we can make it up on the road.

Not gonna happen. As we made our turn onto the interstate, we were immediately pulled into a traffic jam as three lanes took 2 miles to turn into one lane. For many miles, we drove at 5-10 mph, while we looked at empty lanes where there was occasionally a truck or two doing construction. At this point, I’ve taken over driving so mom can “rest” a bit for her concert tonight because we now know we won’t get home in time for her nap, though she should still have time for a shower and fixing her hair. At several points, we get some rain, but overall, it’s just slow going. At one point, someone has to go to the bathroom, so we try to choose a busy exit. Well there were plenty of places to go, but first, the exit off the highway puts us in the wrong lane to go to the closest gas station. The next place we pull over is closed. In the meantime, the kid in the back is getting more desperate, and the GPS is cursing us as we move farther and farther from our exit. Finally, we pull over and make everyone go. We have a few more stops and we’re making ok time now. Grandma is likely going to skip her shower, but will probably be able to fix her hair. We stop about 1 ½ hours out for another potty break and decide (wisely as it turns out) to feed the kids some chicken nuggets and Grandma and mom some coffee. I crawl into the backseat with Florence who has had enough of the carseat and will not quiet down for ANY movie, even Elmo in Grouchland for the umpteenth time. As we get closer, we feel the DC area rush hour traffic pick up. We watch as our GPS puts our arrival time closer and closer to the time Grandma and Poppa are supposed to meet their friends for dinner. We have called Poppa several times to let him know what is going on. We’re moving slow, but we’re moving. All the sudden, the sky opens and monsoon rains fall on us, bringing us to a standstill. We have to laugh at all this because, what else can we do. Stopping is not an option. Finally, it stops as quickly as it started and we feel like we’re making some progress. Grandma’s not going to have time to do her hair, but can maybe change clothes before dinner. Poppa will wait for her to arrive. Now another kid has to go to the potty. So we pull out of traffic and stop. While I take Alex to the bathroom, grandma changes clothes in the car. We have to get back into rush hour traffic, but our exit has actually put us ahead of where we might have been. We keep touching base with Poppa, who has decided to go ahead to dinner and order for mom and I will drop her off. We have to tell stories to the over-protective traffic cops at Wolftrap to be able to drop her off, but she makes it in plenty of time. When I arrive home with the kids, the sky opens again, right as we’re trying to unload the car. I give them a snack and a bath and put them to bed. At this point, the excitements of the day and the McDonald’s espresso have given me too much energy, so I set about doing laundry and unpacking. It was a gift from evening Monica to morning Monica, knowing it would be difficult to face it the next morning. So much for a shorter story.