Home to the Commonwealth: Day 3, Excitement and Drama

ok, you ready for this? We are back again for more VA trip recap! At last!

Day 3, May 31 - I ended up tagging along with my mom, Heather and Chelsea for their 2nd day of DC adventures. Here they are deliberating over the map while riding the metro into DC:

The plan was to see the Lincoln Memorial, walk over to the White House, go get some lunch, then go to the National Zoo. They had wanted to go Georgetown . . . but there wasn't a real easy way to get there via metro and there probably wouldn't be time for it anyhow.

So, with this plan in mind, first stop Lincoln Memorial:

Then we walked past the Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial. I posed in this picturesque little spot:

We found this statue of Einstein (that even having grown up in the DC area, I had never known existed) and we all took turns sitting on his lap:

It was really really hot this day. The DC area was suffering a beast of a heat wave that week with heat indexes up over 100. It was prettty miserable. It was also getting to be near lunchtime, around 11 or so, and Chelsea started complaining of feeling a little sick. She took a little break lying down on the grass, but we just thought she was starting to feel hungry so we thought we'd just get to the White House as quick as we could and then jet on over to Union Square on the metro for lunch.

Along the way there we luckily encountered this birdbath thing and we tried to cool ourselves off a little. We did have water bottles - but it was sooo hot. We splashed water over our heads and arms and legs. Chelsea was not feeling very great. But we were almost there! Almost there, almost there!

And we made it! We posed for pictures!

Yay for sweaty squinty pictures!!
And did you know Michelle Obama has beehives? I didn't.

Well yeah. Chelsea seemed ok while we were taking pictures but then all of a sudden she started lurching away, dry heaving and saying she couldn't see. uh-oh. Mom tried to take her arm and get her to this shady spot just little ways up the sidewalk so she could rest. But she didn't make it that far. She collapsed on the sidewalk a few feet from the shade. We think she probably passed out for at least a few seconds. Next thing we knew the Secret Service guy posted in front of the White House was calling over, "is everything ok? is she ok?" ummm . . . we weren't too sure.

So then lots and lots of Secret Service guys/gals showed up. I wish I had counted how many we had surrounding us at the peak of this adventure. 7 maybe? I don't know.

They were all very friendly. By the time they left I felt like we had made new friends! They had been so helpful and nice, I was almost sad when there was a shift change and new people came. We were there, camped out on the sidewalk by the White House, for hours. This was a very long process. They gave her oxygen. They put ice packs in her armpits. We got her more water. They monitored her heart rate and glucose levels. I don't even know what else. They kept asking us if we want them to call an ambulance, which was kind of confusing. I mean, do we want to pay for a very expensive ambulance ride and spend the rest of our day in an emergency room? Want seemed to be the wrong choice of words for this.

But we kind of took it at face value and figured that if Chelsea was able to get up and walk after resting and all of that, then we could just go get some food (lunch, remember. we were just on our way to get some lunch) and water and AC and she'd be ok. Buuuut . . . . well, a few hours later she was still not able to stand. And we were a good walk from the metro station so we were kind of stuck there. Her heart rate was also elevated and not going down.

After much prolonged discussion and unofficial advice from our friends in the SS, sometime late in the afternoon they called an ambulance. They shut down the entire sidewalk in front of the White House. All the tourists wanting to take their magnificent touristy photos in front of the White House gate were being diverted across the street and turned away from our little "scene." It was, uh sort of awesome. I mean, aside from Chelsea not being able to stand and all of that. ;) haha.

First the fire truck came. And all the EMT's. Then the ambulance.

I got to ride in an ambulance for the first time in my entire life! Such excitement. And Heather took that awesome video coverage of our VIP tour of Georgetown! We made all sorts of jokes about how we ended up seeing Georgetown after all! Wohoo! :) But we weren't going to make it the zoo. Boooo. :(
And . . . we still hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, what with all the excitement and all.

And it was around 5 or 6 pm by this time. (Do you remember she collapsed around 11 or so AM? yep.)

So, while Chelsea got IV fluids and an EKG and stuff at the emergency room at Georgetown University Hospital (heat exhaustion was the official diagnosis I believe), Heather and I went and found some food (and brought some to them mom and Chel too) and enjoyed a little stroll around the campus.

phew! We then found out that there was a free shuttle to the metro station (hooray!! such a relief since we were now stranded out in Georgetown), so around 7 or 8 at night, we finally said our goodbyes to the emergency room. And went back "home."

(photo of incredible sunset at the parking lot of the Springfield Metro station, close to our hotel)

And that . . . is the story of Day 3. :)

by request

The recipe for these totally awesome strawberry lemonade scones that I tried to make can be found here.

I just thought it'd be easier to link to it than write out the recipe for my friend who requested it. :)

A couple notes: the store was out of cream when I was shopping, so I used half and half. And I didn't have freeze-dried strawberries so I just added more fresh ones. And . . . oh I didn't make the lemon curd either. I was almost motivated enough to try to make it - it looked sooo good - but nahh, it was too much work. But even given all these lazy modifications, I'll have you know they were still delicious. yum yum yumm yummmm. :)

Summer Fun {2}

Wheeler Farm! (checked off the summer list) :) June 24 2011

I may have had more fun taking pictures of them than they actually had looking at the farm stuff. But that's ok. :)

Summer Fun {1}

I struggle with summertime. I hate feeling hot - and I end up feeling headachy and sluggish and sleepy. If I don't have some sort of plan, it would be very easy for me to let entropy take over in all things in my household and we just wouldn't do much of anything.

So, yes . . . we made a list. Included on it are utilizing some tickets and deals we've already purchased through Groupon or whatever. Some ideas I have stolen off of Pinterest (probably the list idea itself). Some are really just simple visual reminders of things we should be doing already. I really benefit from having this list up and in sight when I'm tempted to just sit in front of a fan and facebook for hours (nahh, just kidding, I just used FB for the alliteration. hehe.). ;)

Anyway - we've checked some things off! Here's the picture proof:

Trying new recipes! Strawberry Lemonade Scones

Arts and Crafts! Painting

Homemade popsicles! Herbal wild berry fruit tea popsicles

and frozen "grapesicles"

Strawberry Picking!

I will even admit to making out a basic weekly plan to try to adhere to (don't laugh - I'm too lazy without one). So I've got a couple pool days, a cleaning day, a treat or craft day, and a "go do something fun" day. Everything is going pretty smoothly, except for the cleaning day. I'm still working on that one. haha.

more pics to come:)

Finale

Abigail performed in her last ballet recital in June. It's been decided that she will quit ballet for awhile . . . for a variety of reasons. But anyway - the theme of the recital was Nursery Rhymes and she performed as Little Miss Muffet and as one of The Three Little Pigs. Her ballet teacher decided she was ready to perform her Little Miss Muffet solo on pointe, which was wonderful for us since we'd been hoping hoping hoping she'd be able to perform on pointe before quitting. :)

She did such a great job. She is so graceful and expressive in her dancing. So much natural talent, combined with an absolute love of being on the stage. Do you see the line of her face and arms in that bottom left photo? And her pretty hands? Beautiful. Really (if I do say so myself).

She cried on the way home after the recital, sad that it was her last one (at least for awhile). And I cried with her. It broke my heart. We are so proud of her and just amazed at how much she thrives on performing. We know she'll find more opportunities for being on stage, and we hope she'll be able to get back into dance again someday . . . soon. It's just hard and no way around it.

Anyway - I was going to just post that collage above, but here are some others I can't resist sharing.

Little Miss Actress being scared by the spider:

And 3 flying pigs (funniest action shot ever):

I did it again!

Some of you might remember 2 summers ago when I posted about running the Lavender Days 5K (I'd link to it, but it's hidden in the old blog which is now private). It was the first running I had done for many many years and the first 5K I had run since college (when I ran 2 of them, with Zac's encouragement).

Well, on Thurs I kind of decided spur of the moment to register for this year's Run Through The Lavender again. I haven't really done any running lately - just a couple weeks ago I ran 30 min one time and was surprised that I could do it. With Zumba and the Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred that I've been doing for quite awhile now, I've been feeling strong(ish) and I kind of just wanted to see if I could do a 5K again. And I love lavender. I love running through the fields of lavender.:)

(Here's the link to the Run Through the Lavender)

(and a photo from the website:)

So on Sat. Zac came down with me to cheer me on (he decided not to run it this year) and I loaded up my ipod and laughed at myself for looking a bit ridiculous (haha).

But I ran the whole thing! And I felt pretty good! Wohooo!!! (My camera batteries died, so these remaining race pics were taken on Zac's phone which takes crappy photos.)
Here I am running the dirt trail through the fields of lavender:


And there I am in the very back of this pack (and you can't really see me):

I even finished 5 min faster than I did 2 yrs ago (!!), which made me pretty happy, esp since I had been running a lot more working up towards the 5K that time and this time I hadn't "trained" at all.

(I was still slow at 36 min - but eh, who cares . . . right? ) ;)

This was the first time I've ever run a race all by myself and also the first time I've run with my ipod. Music really helps. This time INXS "Suicide Blonde" and Violent Femmes "Kiss off" were especially motivating somewhere in the middle of the race. I'd recommend those, personally, for your own running playlist, if you feel so inclined. ;)

And here I am back home later in the day with my bag of goodies and t-shirt (yay for lavender chapstick and essential oil!):

And yay for me! :)

I did it!

(again!)

hooray.

oh hello!

I think . . . I am about ready . . . to come back to blogland at last. Hooorraaaay!!!

It took quite a long time to figure out all those computer issues. Long story short, we eventually bought a new laptop and I am allllllllmost finished with getting everything transferred onto it. I think.



Now I am just feeling a wee bit overwhelmed with the large {virtual} pile of posts I want to get written! Sigh.

And I'm not sure whether to start in with some more recent-ish posts, get up to date then finish the trip posts, or just start back with the trip I never finished and continue chronologically from there, or mix em all up together as I get to them. Huh.

Well, here's a more recent photo I took of a sunset from my back deck, just to whet your appetite for all the awesomeness to come. haha.

More soooooooon . . .