5¢ Bags

Yesterday we took a trip to Washington D.C. to go the temple. We had an arrangement with Nick and Nadine wherein they would drop off their kids early in the morning at our house and then immediately leave for D.C. They were to call us when they pulled into the temple parking lot at which point we would leave--and hopefully arrive just as they were walking out from their temple session. We hoped that this plan would make it easier on all of the children (and the parents) since it wouldn't require that the children spend 4 hours inside the visitor's center trying to find something to do.

Megan and I had envisioned making it in time for the 1:00 p.m. session, and then running an errand from 3:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. Alison had an interest in seeing the Lincoln Memorial since she learned all about Lincoln ("famous people are on coins") on President's Day. We thought we'd leave D.C. around 5:00 p.m. and make it home in time for bathtime and bedtime, and a relaxing evening at home.

This is what our car looked like as we were pulling away over an hour behind schedule:

Clearly, our visions of the day were a bit optimistic! So, how did the day actually turn out?

• We made the 2:30 p.m. session, not the 1:00 p.m. session.
• After the temple, everyone was uncomfortably hungry so I suggested that we blow some of our upcoming tax refund and go to the Cheesecake Factory. Had I known that we would spend one hour waiting for a table and then spend 2 more hours there eating, taking kids to the restroom, eating more, crying, talking to doctors about Kaitlyn's possible ear infection, and taking kids back to the restroom, I probably would have just suggested McDonald's!
• Since we didn't leave the restaurant until almost 8:00 p.m. seeing the Lincoln Memorial got cut.
• We did, however, decide to still run our errand...

Megan has been wanting to go to IKEA to get some matching kids plates, utensils, and cups so that we could throw away our random assortment of free plastic restaurant cups that we've been using. While Megan went into the store, I circled the parking lot waiting for the closest space to the door to open up. When I found the perfect spot, I took it and waited. I called Megan to tell her "I've got the closest spot so it will be easy to find us when you get out." It turns out that I got the closest spot to the entrance--which is about a quarter of a mile away from the exit. As Megan briskly walked up to the car, I noticed that her arms were completely full. I opened the car door and she yelled, "They charge you for bags!" I agreed that that was pretty lame, but then I discovered an interesting fact: the bags cost 5 cents. That's right; 5 cents. Megan was so frustrated with her day that she wasn't going to spend even 5 more cents on anything unnecessary!

We finally made it home at about 11:30 p.m. completely exhausted (yet 5¢ better off).

I can tell that you're exhausted from just reading all that, so in an attempt to inject some family cheer into your now bleak view of our weekend, here is Mr. Max sitting with with us today at family dinner for the first time, as well as my first attempt at uploading a video (Kaitlyn's puppet show).

"This little puppet was Ali, and this little puppet was Kaitlyn."

One more thing I really ought to mention: Megan ran 6 miles on Saturday morning! She's really quite inspiring with her half-marathon training.