FIREWORKS

Although my parents and Ryan had to leave right before the big 4th-of-July weekend, we were not lonely since our pals the Gertsches came to visit just in time for the 4th! We ate treats, stayed up late talking, watched the four kids tear through the house like banshees, went to church, and of course, watched fireworks at the Mall! We didn't go last year (figuring that this size of 4th of July is sort of an every-other-year kind of affair) and Matt & Doreen didn't go when they were living here, so of course we had to go this year. Plus, this could possibly be our last year in DC! CRAZY!!!

Doreen is expecting their third baby as well (also a boy) a month before us, so it was pretty awesome running around DC in 95-degree heat with sleepy kids and two pregnant women in tow! One stroller was totally filled with drinks and snacks. But wait - the story gets better.

Almost as soon as we got to the Mall from the metro station, right as we reached the thickest of the crowd, Kate informed me that she desperately needed to use the ladies' room. (Which on Independence Day, as we know, is a long line of port-a-potties surrounded by an even longer line of people.) Our little group of 8 people and 3 strollers stopped near the long display of giant green plastic sentinels and Kate & I turned off toward the line. As an afterthought Travis called, "Here, take my phone!" and tossed it to me. Well, the bathroom trip took a very short maybe two minutes max, thanks to Kate's desperate whining and hopping up and down. Another mommy took pity on us and let us go ahead of them, since she believed her son had already taken care of what he needed to do in his pants. We rushed in and rushed out, trying to minimize our disgust, and hurried back to the gravel path. No Lundells or Gertsches or strollers in sight. I was kind of surprised, thinking, surely they wouldn't leave us for a two-minute bathroom trip, but no worries - I had Travis's phone. Right??? Well, let me tell you about this little piece of work. Although it is smaller than its stone-age predecessors we all carried around to dances in high school, um, that's about all it has going for it... including its reliability. It only took about 15 calls to all three cell phone numbers for me to realize I wasn't getting through. Oh and those 15 calls were enough to drain the battery dry too. Kate and I stood there in the sweltering heat, scanning the sea of, I don't know, 14 million people, and I was like, "Oh crap."

Maybe you know from experience that it only takes the realization of a loss or absence of something to make you suddenly panic for lack of it. In this case, it was water. Here I was, an abnormally huge pregnant woman, already dehydrated (I'd been waiting to find our spot before breaking out the 4 gallons of drinks I'd brought) and KNOWING there was a stroller full of water out there that was most certainly beyond my grasp. I started feeling light-headed and had visions of myself passing out in the middle of the Mall with a hysterical 3-year-old screaming her head off. I also had no purse or money or ANYthing but a metro ticket in my back pocket. And even then, no car keys. The claustrophobia set in quickly.

Fortunately, however, we hadn't gone far, because then Kate suddenly announced that she had to go to the ladies' room AGAIN (this time #2). REALLY??? So with nothing better to do, we trudged back to the now even longer line. She was even more desperate this time, crying and hopping up and down, and some amused bystanders even began to snap photos of her, which seriously annoyed me but I guess in their defense it WAS kind of a funny sight, and a poignant picture of a typical 4th of July on the Mall.

After our long wait in line and second trip to the fragrant field of port-a-potties, we headed back toward the gravel walkway again. I reached in my pocket halfheartedly for Travis's phone when suddenly up ahead, I spotted something. He caught my eye only because he was walking against the flow of the crowd. And he was wearing a black shirt with the "Fighting for Life" logo (the movie about his school, in which he appeared). And oh no, he was walking very, very quickly. "Kate, RUN!" I screamed and we went tearing after him until we were close enough to shout his name. Luckily we were miraculously reunited in the end and avoided what surely would have been a disastrous Independence Day. He explained that he thought I'd told them to go on ahead without us while we made the bathroom trip. I wondered why I would do that since we were gone for less than 2 minutes and no WAY would I have trusted myself with just Travis's phone. (PS I just ordered him a new phone.) At this point we had to wait in an even longer security line to get to our spot. We rejoined our group just before the fireworks started. And then I drank several bottles of water.

Here is where we were sitting, near the Washington Monument.
Of course, the fireworks were fun to watch, but it was even more fun to watch Brookie's face. She was SO EXCITED! (She had kind of settled down by this point and was just staring, awestruck.) And then she cupped her hands in front of her and tried to catch the fireworks.

After the show we waited for the crowd to ebb a little before packing up and walking to the metro station. Even so, and even after walking to the metro center which was NOT the nearest station, the throngs of people were amazing. We got a little creative with carrying our strollers down escalators and barreling through lines to get to the widest stroller-accommodating turnstiles. We finally got home around 11:30, with a bunch of pretty exhausted kiddos AND grown-ups! The kids went straight to bed, of course, but the grown-ups hit the showers. We were so sticky and sweaty and HOT after that long night!

The next morning we said good-bye to the Gertsches and then kind of puttered about in a stupor all morning (except for Travis, who of course went back to studying). Brooklyn had only been up a few hours when she found Hunter's "bed" still on the floor. And like Goldilocks, she thought she'd try it out.
All in all, a fabulous summer holiday.
Happy Birthday, US of A!