This is a very long post, so I apologize in advance. We had an amazing experience this weekend. I don't feel that words can express my feelings, or that photos can illustrate the experiences we had as a family. It was a once in a lifetime experience.
On Friday, 9/11, on the 8 year anniversary of those horrible terrorists attacks we loaded up the car and drove to Washington DC for two days. We checked into our hotel and thanks to some light traffic (I've never made the trip that quick) we had an hour and a half to do some quick sight seeing. The obvious choice was the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial - it was close and it was fitting to visit on the anniversary. I didn't really want to explain to my children that there are men out there evil enough to deliberately hurt and kill thousands of people (along with themselves). Trying to explain to the kids where and why we were going was difficult, but important and brought up lots of questions. It's important for them to understand the world they live in. A week after the 9/11 attacks Mike and I drove to the DC temple, it was our first time since moving to VA and we took a wrong turn and ended up driving by the Pentagon by accident. Seeing the black gaping whole in the side of the building was a shocking experience. The only problem with with visiting the memorial is that there is no parking. So Mike dropped me off with the girls and we took a look and then we circled in the car while Mike and Calvin looked. It was a cool memorial made more poignant by the flowers and flags left by loved ones at the individual memorials on the anniversary. The picture of the pentagon shows the line of old brown stone and the newer, grayer stone. Each person had a bench with water flowing underneath it (the water flowed underground as well connecting each of the memorials).
We then drove to Arlington Cemetary. We literally ran to the grave of the unknown soldier to see the changing of the guard. We arrived just as the change of gaurd was happening. I was amazed at how good the kids were - all 4 of them were silent and well behaved during the ceremony. Again, it was difficult to explain that those thousands of head stones belonged to people who gave their life while fighting for our country. What was hard for Anna Elise to understand was that there were even more 'mean men' that died. It's a very beautiful place, the hills and trees making it difficult to really see how many gravestones are really there.
We went back to our hotel for dinner and bed. The next day was going to be an adventure for us! That night Mike made posters and we did some last minute train changes. We were going to take the kids to the Tea Party/Patriot/Conservative March/Protest/Rally (whatever you want to call it) to show our disapproval of the decisions being made for our country. We told the kids the story of the Boston Tea Party and that we needed to tell the President that he and others are making decisions for us that we don't agree with - spending too much money, high taxes, bailouts, socialized healthcare (I'll stop before I get all worked up). Anna Elise was a little bit concerned that we would get in trouble. We explained that this is what the US is all about, it's about the people, and we have not only a right, but an obligation to speak out.
In the morning we drove to our train station and hopped on a crowded train. It was full of patriots headed to the capital. This is where I began to realize how big this event was - I'm not sure what I expected but not the numbers of people I saw - good, helpful, friendly people all thrilled to be there. A very old man stood up and offered me his seat. Calvin, Lilah and I cramed into it. The man's wife held Calvin on her lap so he could see outside the window when the train wasn't under ground. The couple had got on the stop before (the first stop on the train) where the line to buy fare cards was an hour long. It was 9:30 am, an hour after people had started gathering and the line was an hour long. At every stop 1 or 2 got off, while more piled in. Signs, flags, patriotic clothing was everywhere. The kids got restless, but many hands reached out to help us. One lady held our signs for us, someone else gave Anna Elise their seat, people told me about their kids - this was just the beginning. After 45 minutes we finally reached our stop, at an underground station. As we stepped out onto the platform a cheer errupted from the crowd getting off. A cheer of "USA" started and my heart was so full it was hard to stop the tears. We went up an escalator and into a crowd of people. We couldn't exit the station until our cards where scanned at the turnstiles and the back up was causing a huge crowd. The police were yelling "move aside", "don't block the escalator", "keep moving". The crowd tried to obey. People saw our kids and stroller and made paths for us . The crowd built up and we couldn't move fast enough. It was stressfull and Anna Elise felt the stress and didn't like the dark and started to cry. Finally the police opened the gates, another yell errupted, and the crowd could move much faster. We were on the wrong side to get through with our stroller, there was no way we could get out of the way, a friendly man who'd been helping us lifted the stroller with Mike and carried it over the top of the turnstiles. So many people reached out to hold things and talk to our kids and we heard over and over "you are so brave", "it's so good you brought your kids", "what a beautiful family". Mike told them the kids needed to be there, they were the one's paying for the decisions being made. They needed to see what an amazing country we live in. We followed the crowd down a side street and meet up with the march on Pennsylvania Avenue. We marched (Anna Elise pointed out that we really just walked) to the capital. The rolling cheers and chants, the signs, the kind and civilized people were a pleasure to talk to and walk with. We think we joined toward the front of the crowd. There were thousands of people around us. After walking about an hour we got to the capital and there were thousands already there. We stayed for another hour and people were still steadily marching down Pennsylvania Ave. I can't describe to you the number of people. We couldn't get high enough up to get a picture. I've heard many estimates, but I believe the DC police said 1.2 million. The feelings that came from standing firm with so many like minded Americans was overwhelming. We stayed in the back, I couldn't really hear the speakers. By lunch the kids were about done and we'd promised we could go to the zoo so we had to leave. As we made our way out, we could still see people coming down the street, cheering, marching, making themselves heard. Even though I don't agree with our current government, I am so proud to be an american. I was proud to help make a stand.
I stole this picture - it captures the crowd better than we could.
We caught another train and had lunch at Mike's favorite resturant. We then tried to catch a bus, but that didn't work. A helful bus driver gave us a ride to another bus stop and we were able to catch the right bus to the zoo. Our mile journey took an hour but we made it! The zoo is FREE so it was ok that we were only there for 2 hours. We saw what we needed to - very active Lions and Tigers, Elephants, Hippos, Bears, Gorillas (Calvin liked the one that ate his poop and Anna Elise and I liked the mommy one with her 7 month old baby girl - SO CUTE). We bought them cotton candy on the way out and trudged to the train station. We had to make one transfer but made it home - again with friendly patriots helping us out and having a good time entertaining our kids. We loaded up into the car and 10 minutes later they were all asleep! It had been a very long day and I'm feeling it today - but so worth it. We are proud to be Americans!
