One 4th to another

One year ago today we boarded a plane and embarked on identifying a new place as home. All the traditional time-space continuum comments apply - seems like forever ago and yet I still say, "We just moved here." But I am liking that our move to Washington DC coordinates with the nation's birthday - every 4th of July will commemorate the beginning of our time here.

Determined to take advantage of "Daddy's building" location, we signed up to be among the Federal Reserve employees and family watching the fireworks on the National Mall from the Federal Reserve Terrace. We didn't really know what we were getting into, but it turned out lovely. The cafeteria (location of the terrace) served up hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza and was all decked out in red, white and blue. In the second dining area they had kiddie karaoke, where we were both more than a little disturbed witnessing an 8 year-old sing along word-for-word to High School Musical's Fabulous (Fetch me my jimmy choo flip flops, Where is my pink prada tote? - seriously, I'm not kidding - those are the lyrics). The redemptive activity for the juice box set was the face painting. And once again, this ain't yo' mama's "Would you like a butterfly or a heart?" face painting. This was name your hero/heroine and I will make you in their likeness. With glitter. Awesome. Both of our daughters' requests? "Princess."

Faces freshly adorned, mama wanted a whole family shot of the beautiful, huge American flag at the terrace entrance. We kinda stood there, looking around for someone who looked friendly and camera-competent. I gestured to a gentleman coming our way - nice polo shirt, Nats ball cap, friendly father-figure type that I recognized from the waiting-for-another-cheese-pizza-to-come -out line that had asked me, "Where did you get the plate?" - and I asked Kurt, "What about him?" Turns out it's this man - Chairman of the Board, Ben Bernanke, i.e. the guy that every other person in the room was ready to open doors for, fall prostrate to, etc.

Kurt quickly said, "No, we're not going to ask the Chairman to take our picture." The Chairman, having super powers and what not, overheard our conversation and stopped to chat to make the humiliation complete. I could only smile, do my nervous-Tara-laugh and apologize that I didn't know his face. At a pause, Olaiya, equally unaware of her boldness, pipes up "I'm a princess!" "Are you?" says the Chairman. "And this is my sister Naomi, and she's a princess too! We got our faces painted!" "Does that make them the king and queen?" responds the Chairman, gesturing to Kurt and I. And that was it - my introduction to my husband's boss' boss' boss' boss.

We scored seats out on the highly-regulated terrace that stared right down the Mall at the Washington Monument. Very cool. We thought the fireworks would be shot from there, but they ended up being closer to the Lincoln Memorial and due to the terrace overhang, were slightly out of view, though still just yards away. Olaiya *loved* the fireworks. Her smiling face and shining wide eyes were my favorite part of the show. Naomi on the other hand, covered her ears and repeatedly whimpered, "I need to go inside. I need to go inside." She made it through the show, and afterward when asked if she had fun, happily agreed.

We'd been warned by Kurt's coworkers that the Federal Reserve parking garage exit could be ridiculous and by friends and media at large that the DC exit was hours long and herd-like at best. One coworker and her family told us they arranged for DC hotel accommodations - yikes. DVD player equipped, we busted downstairs, ran to the car, and got out lickety-split. An under descriptive exit sign actually aided our escape and we avoided all the crazy back-to-the-suburbs! hordes and had the girlies in bed by 10:45p. Take that.

Next year I think we'll see if the Fed guards will let us park our blanket on the Federal lawn, which is right across the street from the Lincoln Memorial, this year's (maybe every year's?) launch site, and really catch the patriotic splendor. But truly it was a really lovely 1st DC 4th.

The photo, captured by a different passerby.

"Happy 4th of July!"
(thrilled with their surprise saved-from-Halloween
glow-in-the-dark accessories.)


Our terrace view, Capitol in the distance and all.


9:00p awaiting the scene.


Woohoo!