Day 3 of 9

Well, the day began early--not--when we all slept in and missed the 9:00 shuttle to the metro station. We were subsequently disappointed when the 10:00 shuttle was full. The driver assured us he would be back in 10 minutes, yet 1 hour later he returned and the shuttle filled up again before our family of six could get on. This was a good challenge for us. Could we stay kind? Could we roll with the punches? Could we withhold grumbling about the hotel and its service? No, we could not. But we did try to pull ourselves together as best we could. We took our van to the metro station and parked it there, which we could have done two hours earlier if we had only known.



But once we boarded the metro we were back on track. It only took three monuments for us to fall seriously off again: the Lincoln memorial, the Korean war memorial, and the Vietnam memorial. We are smiling in the pictures, but by the time we limped onto the site of the WWII memorial--hot, thirsty, and tired--there was some definite bad blood going on. A 10-minute rest with our feet in the water there did wonders, and we forged on to the Smithsonian with famial harmony renewed. A long break and $20 worth of lemonade put us almost as good as new.

We lingered at the Air and Space museum for awhile--more on that tomorrow--and then we caught the free 6:00 pm concert at the Kennedy Center. I would be lying if I said that all the kids were as enthusiastic as I was about this opportunity, or if I tried to claim that once they heard the music they became engrossed and subsequently asked my forgiveness for their reluctance. But some of us enjoyed it and thanked the others for sticking in there--though not quite until the end of the concert.

We had a contest today as well, but not about civics. This morning Meredith was feeling put-upon, and I realized that what she needed was a Day of Adoration. So I told the other big kids that whoever could serve and adore Meredith the most effusively would be granted an as yet undisclosed award. As usual, Jacob was motivated by the competition and the reward and Sophia was motivated by the moral challenge, so Meredith lived like a princess. Jacob carried her purse all day long. Can you believe that? Meredith hates to carry her purse, and yet she really wants it with her, so she was beyond delighted at this service. Sophia was marvelously kind and solicitous as well. Meredith just announced the winner right before we turned off the lights for bed (I'm writing in the dark), and Jacob won by a slim margin because of his purse-carrying stunt. He is just willing to do anything to win.

Sophia is still up reading her scriptures and look, I'm blogging! More tomorrow!

Day 2 of 9

Our first two days of vacation are mostly driving. We left yesterday from Lawrence about 2:00 pm. The original plans were to leave early, but those were foiled when Jacob got a tuberculosis test last Thursday (required for boarding school). Turns out a TB test must be read in person three days later. So there we were on Sunday morning at the immediate care clinic having Jacob's forearm reviewed for signs of infection. Nada of course.

We had rather a blessed day in the car yesterday. The kids were all in a jovial mood, due they think to the lingering fun of theater camp. Doug points out that there was a lot of sleeping. They also played Mafia, a favorite game for which skills were honed during theater camp warm-ups. Jacob and Aidan sat in the very back of the van, and Jacob kept Aidan so entertained that we hardly heard a peep out of him. Aidan, that is. We heard lots of peeps out of Jacob. Even when his headphoneswere on he would be singing at the top of his lungs. Aidan only piped up when he had been injured in a game of tackle. How do you play tackle in the back seat of the car? Ask Aidan and Jacob.

Things are going smashingly today as well. We stayed last night in Richmond, Indiana, which is where Doug and I met 17 years and 2 months ago. We had breakfast at a Bob Evans; Doug got fried mush to show the kids what it's like. He used to have fried mush a lot when he was little at Grandma Patzner's farmhouse. Then we actually drove over to the Hill's Richmond plant, where 17 years ago I was engrossed in my business school internship and one certain information systems team leader. When we stepped out of the car in front of the plant, the scent of corn gluten washed over us. Doug and I inhaled deeply and enjoyed the memories; the kids thought it was nasty and pulled the tops of their t-shirts up over their noses as filters. We took pictures of our four children in front of the plant. Who would have thought 17 years ago that we'd be all married with four such spectacular offspring?

We headed on down I-70 toward West Virginia. We were going to dump Jacob's stuff at his school early so we don't have to haul it around all week. As we were driving, Jacob decided he needed some of Sophia's string to make a friendship anklet, and so ferocious bargaining ensued. Jacob thought foolishly that she could be persuaded if he 1) demanded the string from her loudly. After I talked him through the merits of negotiating with your subject's interests in mind, he mistakenly attempted to 2) persuade her with an offer of payment. Finally, Sophia stepped in with a compromise: if Jacob would read the book on Congress she had checked out, she would give him the string. He took her up on that and then I upped them one, and we had ourselves another deal: if they would read the book and take a quiz, they would receive a cash award, the amount based on their performance on the quiz. Sophia was enticed by the learning challenge, and Jacob was enticed by the competition and the cash reward, and Meredith wasn't enticed by any incentive at all so we told her we'd pay her a buck if she's simply read one page and take the quiz.

Here it is:

Quiz about Congress

1. What is a filibuster?
   
2. When our government was first being formed, what was the dilemma about representation to Congress? How was it solved?
   
3. What is the leader of the House of Representatives called?
   
4. What is a bill? How does one get passed?
   
5. What is the leader of the Senate called?
   
6. The two groups of representatives who make laws are together called ________.
   
7. What is the name of the document that described how our government would be organized and that made the first laws of our nation?
   
8. Are you allowed to carve your name in your desk if you are a Senator?
   
9. True or False: Only the president can declare war.
   
10. What are the small groups that leaders break into to talk about ideas and write bills?
    

Something new was learned by everyone, so we'll call it a success.

We arrived in DC about 9:30 at a rather stinky hotel where we had to wait an hour for the computers to be fixed before we could checked in, but it's cheap and so no complaining. We're off to the National Mall in the morning!

Family Vacation

What better way than to initiate another probably doomed attempt at blogging than by reporting on our family’s summer vacation?

We are headed east--our entire family: all four kids, both parents. It feels like a long time since we all six of us made it away together. Our plan is to see some sights in DC, then head up to Philly for a visit with my sister and her family, then back to West Virginia to drop Jacob off at his new school.

Jacob had a most remarkable semester at the military academy. By his own reckoning, it took about two weeks for him to feel comfortable and make friends. Then he was off. He enjoyed his classes, especially Spanish. He enjoyed making friends with the international students and learning cuss words in several foreign languages, including Spanish and Korean. He became quite an expert at hospital corners. He did not much enjoy the food. When he came home at spring break, he cooked us up a breakfast MMA-style: sloshy, watery oatmeal, saltless scrambled eggs, and grapefruit hunks floating in a vat of water. Nevertheless, he shed a tear or two when it came time to say goodbye. Need I mention that he received the top academic award for his grade? Both his social and academic performances were stellar. We were very proud of him and were delighted to see him thriving.



Shortly after bringing him home for the summer, Jacob got going on a little neighborhood mowing business.



Meanwhile, the younger kids and I headed west to Albuquerque for a couple of weeks. Most recently, Jacob, Sophia, and Meredith came off three weeks of theater camp, sponsored by Uncle Rick and Grandma Susie. Those events deserve their own posts, but we’ll skip them for now and move on, as promised, to the Full Family Vacation. But first, I should note that Jacob recently turned 14, was advanced to the office of a teacher in the Aaronic priesthood, and attended his first church dance.



Now back to the introduction to our family vacation.

We all adored MMA, but Jacob had caught a glimpse of the co-ed prep school lifestyle when we made a round of boarding school visits last January. He decided to give MMA a go for a semester and then take up at a coed prep school this coming fall. He’s going out for soccer and starts pre-conditioning in early August, so we thought we’d bring the whole family out to deposit him at school, and might as well make it into a sightseeing extravaganza while we’re at it.