Memorial Day!!

The Hobbs visit the Berlin Wall for Memorial Day

Memorial Day is awesome. This year we made plans to visit the Newseum and watch the rehearsal for the National Memorial Day Concert. Also on the schedule were a couple BBQ's with friends and lots of fun!

Day one of the Memorial Day extravaganza went great. We made it to the Newseum and loved it! For anyone not from our area, it's a museum dedicated to the news that recently re-opened at a new location in DC. Although expensive ($20/adult), we thought it was worth every cent! Highlights include: the front page of a newspaper from all fifty states and around the world; the awesome collection of historically important newspapers including everything the first printing of the bill of rights to the first Norman Rockwell cover of the Post; the 9/11 exhibit with the actual antenna from the North Tower; and even the Berlin Wall!! I also loved the 4-D movie , which is a 3-D movie plus moving seats, sprays of water, and wind effects. Well, I enjoyed half I saw before escorting a majorly freaked out Grant from the theater (should have seen that one coming)! I really think it was the whole simulation of rats rushing between your feet that sent him over the edge, hehe.

Burdicks at the wall. Of course they are all fancy and have been to the actual Berlin wall. But hey, now the Hobbs have ridden on the largest hydraulic glass elevators in the world (and you can too if you visit the Newseum), so I wouldn't act so snooty if I were you! haha

9/11 Exhibit

Anyway, the Newseum was great, although a bit boring for young children. On our way out, we noticed there are apartments adjacent to the Newseum, aka the Newseum Residences. Travis decides to give up his retirement dream of living in upstate New York and wants to live in the luxury Newseum apartments instead. I totally agree. Back to reality: Next, we grabbed a bite to eat and headed to the Capitol for the big concert. The weather was beautiful, and since Fiona's dad is visiting, we enjoyed handicapped seating right in front! If you have someone in a wheelchair with you, the entire group gets to sit near the front. So we cleared the size of our group, etc with the policeman at the entrance and went to set up.

Enter Ms. Annoying. This chick told us we could not set our camp chairs up because although we were there with a handicapped person, we were not handicapped and therefore could not sit in a chair, but on the ground. We lovingly pointed out to her that we weren't blocking her view any more than a person in a wheelchair, that we didn't schlep these chairs all the way from the car for nothing, and why did she sit behind the wheelchair section if she didn't want her view blocked and she threatened to call the cops on us. We told her to go ahead and pointed out the BAZILLIONS of other people in camp chairs all around her. She huffed and puffed, then moved from the non-handicapped area where she was seated and plopped herself into the handicapped area to watch the show. We did not threaten to call the cops on her, but laughed and took a picture of her grumpy self for the blog. We laughed even harder when she didn't even stay for half of the concert!

Hi, I'm Ms. Annoying

Anyway, enjoy this great family picture taken by Ms. Super-Nice Random Photography Lady. She entered the scene shortly after Ms. Annoying and offered to take our group picture, even posing us and waiting until the light was just right. She was great. The concert was amazing as always and included performances from Gladys Knight, Sarah Brightman, Rodney Atkins (oh I mean some random old guy who lip-synced to the songs because Rodney couldn't make it to the rehearsal), Gary Sinise, and a ton of other cool famous people. And as always, heart-wrenching stories of sacrifice from our brave soldiers. It was moving and beautiful.

Then Travis and I spent the next night puking, thus ruining the rest of our sweet Memorial Day plans. And what did the kids do while we suffered in agony all day Sunday? Make messes and dream up new trouble. Here is Blake stuck in the entertainment center. It took us about five minutes to wake up enough and recognize his cries from the basement: "Mom! I need help! I want to get down now!" You know when Travis tells you to "come see where your son is" and to bring the camera, you need to hurry no matter how crappy you feel! Spongebob and Dora were great babysitters the rest of the day while we recuperated and it only took Grant and Blake an hour to clean up the mess in the basement today.