Quote of the Day

Eleanor and Henry were helping "wash" dishes in the sink today while I washed the floor.

Eleanor: "I made bubbly soup!"

Me: "What ingredients do you use in bubbly soup?"

Eleanor: "Um, corn, guacamole, avocado...orange. And, that's all."

She loves talking about ingredients. She is going to enjoy the kitchen like her Grandaddy.

Snow!

It has been a long time since I have done a good old fashioned photo shoot with the kids where I take a gluttonous amount of photos and post way to many to our Flickr feed. But, since we had our first snowfall of the season, I decided today was the day. We went over to Anna's house for a little bit and played in (or completely trampled) the snow on their front lawn. The kids had a blast and, as promised, we had hot chocolate upon our return to the house. The hot chocolate probably delighted them equally as much as the actual snow. So, here are a few of my favorites from the afternoon:








And, on a completely separate note, I finally put the pictures from the inauguration up. It was really amazing to see all of the people who showed up to celebrate the various inaugural festivities. We enjoyed spending the day with Leah and her family, though we didn't actually stay until the parade. It was fun to watch the parade at home with the kids anyway.

Quote of the Day

Henry (with gusto): Gaah-baah!

Translation: Barack Obama!

The Concert

So, there was this little show down on the mall today. When my dearest, sweetest, most generous husband suggested that I go down and see it, I couldn't say no. Though I did lament that he and the kids were not there to share it with me. It was good though to go Beth and Jason, we had so much fun. There were just masses of people but everyone was in a great mood and things flowed so smoothly. The line was long but once we got in there was lots of space to move around and we found a great spot near the reflecting pool to watch and listen to a piece of history.





A few little things that happened near us: There was a sweet family right next to us with a little girl sleeping on her dad's lap, she reminded me of Eleanor and it made me smile to see her there. At one point, a little boy noticed the Washington Monument and comment on how sharp it looked. He was right, it did look sharp against the cloudy sky. And, I have to say thank you to the random guys who gave us their leftover chips after waiting in line for two hours at the concession stand -- that small random act of kindness kept me from passing out from hunger (I forgot to eat lunch in my excitement to get down to the show).

This time I took LOTS of pictures and they are all up and ready to look at. More to come on Tuesday.

This Morning

This morning we went down to the National Gallery of Art for a morning of culture. It was really exciting to see preparations being made for all of the inaugural events that will take place in the next few days. The Capitol was decked out with flags, there was a mini MSNBC studio on the Mall at 7th Street SW broadcasting some sort of coverage, there were a million news trucks from all over lining Madison Drive, there were speakers and equipment near the Lincoln Memorial for the big concert tomorrow (Bono!, Springsteen, etc.), and there were port-a-pottys everywhere. Vince asked me as we were driving down Jefferson if I could see any parking spots across the mall on Madison and my reply was "No, all I can see are port-a-pottys!"

Anyway, there is certainly a buzz in the air around here. It is so exciting to be able to witness these historic moments in person. I'll have to take the camera next time!