"Meeting the Good Mail King"

I have so many drafts that need to come out of hiding.
Here is one from September 26th.
Because I am a perfectionist I never finish writing anything with my photos because I don't want to miss a detail, but then I end up not writing anything at all. So here is my fast version of our great and wonderful Saturday at the National Book Festival
(if you are ever in the area don't miss it)

ok so here I go, fast....

Jeff got called in in the morning and so he could not go. I debated if I should stay home or not but mustered up everything I learned while he was a resident and went anyway.

The posters this year were amazing! They are free and they ran out.

The crowds are CRAZy and have gotten worse every year. If you don't like crowds prep yourself for this.
Some of the authors that were there that I would love to have met had the rest of the world not shown up.

• Kate DiCamillo
• Shannon Hale
• Lois Lowry
• Jon Scieszka
• David Shannon
• Mo Willems

The girls saw lots of PBS characters

We didn't know who this little guy was but looked him up and can't stop laughing at his video. Seriously the video is only 44 seconds, watch it!
Sally Jane did not want to pose with any of the characters. There was no line for any of them except for this PBS character..
Yes Mr. McFeely - Speedy Delivery from Mr. Rogers. Except everyone in line were all my age. I touched his jacket and said, "is this really your uniform?" The fabric looked 4o years old. It was him, it was really him. He gave Caroline a signed poster for each kid in her kindergarten class and signed one for each of the girls. I will forever kick myself for not having him sign one to the "Good Mail Queen" I got caught up in the memories and excitement and just didn't think of it till I got home. I was smiling so big my eye holes became slits for the photo. As Annie Kate took this photo with my iphone (my camera ran out of batteries when we got there) he said "Speedy Delivery!"
In case you are too young for Mr. McFeely here is a refresher course.

You can add "Speedy Delivery" the documentary to your netflix

I love running into my young women around town as does Annie Kate because she looks up to them so much!It started to rain and we went to hide out at the Smithsonian red castle after we got these sweet red canvas bags from Target. Free stuff everywhere.
We had not seen the pile of items from the Night at the Museum movie. The kids were excited. The rain started to slow so we ventured out back to the center of the mall, but then decided we had seen and done everything we wanted to.
Annie Kate suggested we go into the National Gallery of Art and said, "we have not been to an art museum for over a month!" (music to a parents ears)

I am embarrassed to admit this but we have only been to the north side only once and it was a mad dash. So when I went to the impressionist gallery I was kicking myself that we had not been sooner. Here we are flying all over Europe to see art and it is only miles down the road from us. I had a print of this in college so I star struck when I saw the real thing.
When Annie Kate saw this print she lost all museum manners and started jumping up and down. This is her art teachers favorite print and looked for it in the Louvre and Musee' dOrsay this summer. Who knew it was in our back yard. She insisted I take a photo of her in front of it and then came home and printed it out to give to her teachers (along with a postcard of the print she purchased from the book store) At the age I had no idea about anything art so this is great to see her excited and learning.

When we walked into the van Gogh gallery the two little girls screamed "van Gogh!" Oh my heavens they were paying attention this summer.

There was a special gallery about Imperial Spain and the girls were begging to go in.

Annie Kate got to try on some of the metal armor
These things were heavy. then Sally Jane wanted to try it on and I asked the docent if I could buy it because this would make a perfect "time out" hat for my house! It is so heavy she can not even hold her head up. She said if she sold it to me then she would lose her job and be calling social services for my torture treatments. Shucks! Maybe they sell them on Etsy.

One of the funnest parts of the day was getting back to our car parked by Union Station. It was dumping rain. It was only about 10 blocks but pushing that double stroller was killer. So I did something I have never done before in D.C. - I took a cab. Why have I not done this before? The best $4.00 I ever spent. If Jeff would have been with us we would have never done this (nor would we have spent $40 at the Museum Book store on artsy stuff for the kids), not because he is cheap he is just tougher than me. So I had a little empowering moment.The girls came home and pulled out all their goodies and crafted and read for the rest of the night.

I will now end every D.C. post with

"I am going to miss this place so much!!!!"
(because minus the $4.00 cab ride and the $40.00 at the museum shop - the day was FREE!)