{"id":199,"date":"2005-05-28T10:31:23","date_gmt":"2005-05-28T17:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/x.jimanddoni.com\/?p=199"},"modified":"2005-06-04T14:12:01","modified_gmt":"2005-06-04T21:12:01","slug":"to-protect-the-least-of-these-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/?p=199","title":{"rendered":"Snowstorm in DC – Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, May 22nd 2005<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last week there was certainly a snowstorm in DC when 21 Snowflakes stormed the halls of Congress. This begins my journal entries of our DC trip:)<\/p>\n

On Tanner’s fourth birthday, we had the incredible privilege of beginning a journey we will never forget. We flew out of Sky Harbor Airport at 8:00 AM and had a layover in the Pittsburgh Airport. For anyone in the PA area, WOW…what a great airport! I have been in several and that one is so far my favorite. It looks like a mall! Couldn’t believe all the great stores in there AND you didn’t have to leave the “unsecured” area to get to them. Too fun!<\/p>\n

We arrived at DCA (Ronald Reagan Airport in DC) at about 5:00 PM. This is a fun airport to fly in to because just before you hit the runway you are flying over water (Potomac maybe?). I couldn’t believe all the green we saw this weekend! This was the first time I had been near the East Coast. Arizona doesn’t have much green in its color palette:).<\/p>\n

I am embarrassed to tell you that I spent the next four days believing I was in Maryland:). Brooke S. had to tell me on Wed that I was actually in Virginia:). I thought DC was a city in Maryland but Brooke explained that DC is not in a state. Am I the only person on the planet that didn’t know that? LOL! Am I the only person on the planet that would admit not knowing it? <\/p>\n

Anyhow, we arrived at our hotel in Arlington, VA (…I thought Arlington was in Maryland and never saw a state on the address in case you are wondering:)<\/em> via Taxi and quickly met up with our good friends Andy and Meredith. Meredith and I have been friends for several years. She and I worked together at Bank One before Tanner was born and than later she pursued the Snowflake program (not knowing that I had done this as well)<\/em>. We got back in touch when she recognized my picture on this website (the adoption agency had referred her to it)<\/em>. Meredith gave birth to Ella (the third snowflake baby in the state of AZ)<\/em> in October of 2003. You may have seen Andy and Meredith and Ian and Ella on Good Morning America this week:).<\/p>\n

We decided that we couldn’t be in DC and not do a little bit of touring so the six of us set out on a little sight seeing trip. I did not bring a stroller for Tanner so I was hoping that he could walk a good stretch. On our little trip we saw the Arlington Cemetery, Arlington Bell Tower, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial Wall and some gorgeous statues whose names I cannot at this moment recall. I just kept having this sense of feeling so “small”. Everything in DC is so big and elaborate…quite a humbling experience really.<\/p>\n

(Note on pictures: I received permission from the Gray’s, Murray’s, Tesdall’s, Strege’s, and Atnip’s to post their pictures. I also have larger versions of pictures of our trip in the Washington Photo Gallery).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Tanner<\/p>\n

\"Tanner<\/p>\n

\"Tanner<\/p>\n

\"Tanner<\/p>\n

\"Arlington<\/p>\n

\"Lincoln<\/p>\n

\"Washington<\/p>\n

\"Shot<\/p>\n

The weather was awesome (though why didn’t someone tell me I would need an umbrella in DC?????…..could have used that info:) <\/em>and the landscape was gorgeous. Especially to an AZ gal who has no true concept of trees and grass:). <\/p>\n

We probably walked about 5 and a half to six miles that night and didn’t get back to the hotel until about 10:00 PM. This was not the smartest mommy move of the week. I can’t decide if I regret it though. It probably wasn’t in the best interest of Tanner’s health but he may never see those things again and I am glad he had this opportunity. And no, Tanner was not up for a 6 mile hike so Ella kindly lent her stroller for a good half of the trip (Tanner fell asleep)<\/em>. Poor Andy and Meredith carried Ella for at least half the trip…quite heroic if you ask me. I was quite impressed that Meredith COULD carry her as far as she did…medal worthy I think:).<\/p>\n

\"Meredith<\/p>\n

When we got back to the hotel we waited for Courtney and Carter. Courtney is another snowflake mommy that I had the privilege of meeting when she began the snowflake process a few years ago. We had too much fun being roomies (until Tanner got sick but that story begins on another day…won’t rabbit trail this early in my tale:)<\/em>. Courtney didn’t arrive until around 11:30 PM. When all was said and done, we didn’t get our boys tucked in until 1:00 AM EST. So ends the first day:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, May 22nd 2005 Last week there was certainly a snowstorm in DC when 21 Snowflakes stormed the halls of Congress. This begins my journal entries of our DC trip:) On Tanner’s fourth birthday, we had the incredible privilege of beginning a journey we will never forget. We flew out of Sky Harbor Airport at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mamas-diaries"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}