Day 2 - Tuesday

Our internet connection was hit and miss in DC, but in out just-arrived-home exhaustion, we'll try to catch up a bit. I have to say that there is no degree of being waited on hand and foot and being spoiled that could be more than this trip. Back to Tuesday... The day started with a trip to the Capitol where the formal group and individual pictures occurred. This meant more time to just mingle with other families and Miss America. :-) Next, we went to the Dirksen (?) Senator office building for a Senator luncheon. The kids really enjoyed watching a big German shepherd smell all around our bus before we could drive onto the premises (OK, we enjoyed it, too). It made perfect sense to the girls that the dog got to decide if we got to go eat with the Senators or not. The luncheon was in one of the hearing rooms which was kind of surreal; all Jeff could think about was baseball and steroids, poor Jeffy. As soon as she was done eating, Rachel moved to one of the Senator chairs up at the front. Some of the kids (not ours, believe it or not) figured out that if you pushed the button labeled 'Talk', the microphone really worked! No one had any problems with that; it was a great time mingling with Senators and listening to random kid comments over the microphones. :-) Senator Nelson sent down a staff person to say that he had wanted to attend the luncheon but would we be able to come up to the Senator's office for a little visit. We had a great time visiting with him about family, Children's, and the Big 12/Big 10 scoop (we had to find out if he knew anything we didn't know!). What an honor to get fit into such a busy schedule.

The rest of the day was free time. After some swimming, we took the Metro to the Air & Space Museum. Unfortunately, it closed 15 minutes later. We took in half of the first floor then walked the mile back to the hotel in the National Mall. It was such a great time; Jeff & I were both thankful that the museum closed two hours earlier than we had expected. :-) We had the double stroller, but the girls walked/ran almost all of it. We bought big pretzels and lemonade for dinner and had a picnic. The weather was gorgeous.