Game Night and Adventures with Earth Day

Thank goodness for lazy Saturdays – waking up late, eating delicious breakfast and somehow getting to take a nap!

We ventured off to the grocery stores late in the afternoon. As soon as we returned, Lane raced to make his famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and while I put together a quick dinner. We ate and in just enough time, made it downstairs to our neighbors for a fun evening of games, laughs, and good food. I realized how much I missed game night. We played 25 Words or Less – a very fun game that Sean & Jessica introduced us to, and by request we brought Pop5, a Cranium pop culture game. We were having such a good time that the night was over before we even realized.

While Saturday’s weather was absolutely gorgeous, the Sunday weather totally sucked. Of course, Sunday is when the big Earth Day festival was scheduled on the National Mall. We were really excited to go because our friend Raquel was helping to organize it and offered to get us VIP passes; this offer was all the more enticing when we heard that Gov’t Mule and Warren Haynes were going to be performing! I knew the forecast had lots of rain, but I figured it would be drizzly/light sprinkles kind of rain. Besides, I’m always disappointed when the forecasted thunder and lightning storms never turn out.

So we packed our umbrellas, a delicious lunch, and everything else we thought we needed. After walking around the booths for a little while, running into our friend Ben, but not finding out the performance schedule, we decided to sit down for a little while. And the rain began. And it POURED. We got out our umbrellas, only to find that one of them was completely useless. After we realized it wasn’t letting up any time soon, we headed to the American Indian Museum for some shelter. Now, remember people, I am 6 months pregnant and can’t walk nearly as fast as I used to. So my jeans got soaked on the walk there.

After hanging out for a while at the museum, eating some of our snacks, and checking on the rain, we decided we should head back, even though it hadn’t stopped yet. As we walked, we quickly recognized Warren Haynes’ voice and fancy guitar playing. We caught half of one song. And then he was finished performing!!! Just our luck. We didn’t see the rest of the band, and hoped that Gov’t Mule was scheduled to play later on – maybe this was why they had the singer listed separately from the band. So we saw Edward Norton and Chevy Chase speak and as we stood cuddled under one umbrella, the rain got stronger and stronger. So strong, in fact, that they announced the rest of the event was canceled due to electrical storms and asked everyone to vacate the national mall. Curses!

We proceeded to get more and more soaked as Lane walked slowly for me and I waddled to try to keep up in the pouring, very slanted and umbrella defying rain. By the time we got to the metro, I could feel water dripping down my backside. Several people sweetly offered me their seats on the metro, but really, who wants to sit down in a sea of wet clothes?? I mean, my underwear was soaking wet!!!

We got home, got into cozy clothes, Lane made me some tea, finished baking the cookies, and we ate our lunch at home for dinner. We also watched a really interesting film on babies and how they start walking, thinking, and talking.

Maybe next year’s Earth Day festival will be much drier and less anti-climactic.