You ever have a day where you wanted to do something and just have everything go right, better than expected even? Well, we had that kind of day today.
I woke up around 4:30 am with an idea. Since this is my final Sunday before the radiation & chemo start I decided that I wanted to do something special with the family today and get some motivation for Tuesday. I thought it would be a good idea for us to go to Washington D.C. I went back to sleep and got back up at 6:30 am. Katie was awake so I talked to her about it and we hatched out a plan to do this as cheaply as possible (getting lunch stuff @ Walmart, etc, etc), got the kids up and by 8:30 am we were on our way. (The cool thing about living so close to D.C. is that we were able to do this for almost nothing.)
Our first stop was the U.S. Marine War Memorial (a.k.a. Iwo Jima Memorial) in Arlington, Va. This is where the motivation comes in. We get there close to 10:00 am and as we are approaching the memorial, Lilli is looking at it and says '"Dad, there are troops down there!" I thought "Cool, we'll get to talk to a couple of Marines." Well, what we walked into was one of the coolest things we could have done. Those troops that Lilli saw were both Marines and Sailors and they were there for a ceremony. At first we didn't know what the ceremony was for. Then when they called "Attention to Orders" and started reading the warrant, I realized what kind of ceremony we had walked into. It was a Commissioning ceremony. We got the privilege of watching a young Navy R.O.T.C student become a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. It was a really cool thing to watch. It was emotional. Katie had to wipe the tears from her eyes a couple of times. I felt proud to be there. After the ceremony I had a brief chance to talk to Lt. Cain (that's who the ceremony was for). I congratulated him and let him know just how motivating watching his ceremony was. I also let him know that even though he had only been a Lt. for about 10 minutes he had managed to help motivate me in my fight. It seemed to genuinely touch him. After I had talked to him, his Captain came over to me and we talked for a bit. He let me know that Marines do take care of their own and if we ever needed anything to contact him at the George Washington University Navy ROTC and he would help us the best he could.
You would think that would be the highlight of the day. Normally, yes, it would be, but not today. After the Memorial we went over to the Netherlands Carillon, which is next to the Marine Corps Memorial. This is a gift from the Netherlands to the U.S. for liberating them in World War II. Katie loves Carillons and enjoyed seeing it. We then headed into D.C. proper to walk around the National Mall. I have heard horror story after horror story about driving and parking in D.C. so I was expecting a massive headache. That was not the case today. Traffic flowed very smoothly and it only took us about 15 minutes to find a nice little parking spot on the street!
Walking through the Mall was just a great experience as well. While it was hot (97 degrees), we were able to deal with that by bringing water and Gatorade with us and staying in the shade as much as possible. We ate lunch on the Mall, which was a neat experience. We walked up to the Washington Monument and back down to the Lincoln Memorial, stopping to see the White House, World War II and Korean War Memorials.
When our water ran out, we bought some from a vendor so we could stay hydrated in the heat. Well, Lilli was saying that she didn't feel well, so I poured some water on the back of her neck. She didn't like that. She told me that when I pour water on her I should pour it on her head. So, I poured it on her head and the kid loved it! She stopped not feeling well. Felt much better. She kept wanting me to pour water on her head in fact. Hey, as long as it kept her cool and kept her from complaining, why not.
The girls also got to see and pet a Park Police horse and we saw a crazy duck in the Reflecting Pool. This thing must have wanted something on the bottom in the worst way. He went down 3 or 4 times to get whatever it was and every time he would all you would see of him was a small portion of his tail and his feet just kicking back and forth trying to keep his balance. He was one odd duck.
All in all it was an outstanding day! I will take at least three memories from this day though;
1) Lt. Cain's Commissioning ceremony
2) Standing there in front of the Lincoln Memorial as our day was winding down pouring water on Lilli's head and her just loving it.
3) In the car as we were sitting in traffic heading out of D.C., Emily reaches up, grabs my shoulder and says "Thanks for bringing us here today Dad. I had a really great time."
One and a wake up.
3 comments:
It sure sounds like you all had a good time yesterday. I'm very glad because I know the next few months are not going to be good ones for you. You are a great dad to my granddaughters.
That's an inspiring story. I teared up reading it!
i know no one is probably ever gonna see this. but i really hope i told him this, and if i didn't i'm so so so sorry. but my absolute two favorite times that day where when he tried to tech me the cupid shuffle in the middle of the cross walk by the washinton monument and then that night when we both danced it and laghed because it was super late and i kept laughing because i felt sosilly.
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