We were fortunate to attend the White House Easter Egg Roll again. I signed my whole family up for the ticket lottery and Bebe won! What a gal! It was a great surprise to have the chance to return to the White House during a new administration because all of my former coworkers are no longer there to help me get tickets.
Our ticket time was 9:45 a.m. so we got there at 9 a.m. and the line to enter wrapped in a Z formation (like airport security) probably 30 Zs deep....never seen anything like it! We didn't get to the security check point until 9:45 and then security was shut down for 10 minutes. We got through the security by 10:15 and waited in another line (can you believe the madness!) until they finally said anyone with a 9:45 ticket could proceed to the south lawn. We finally entered at 10:40 a.m..
Despite the insane way of handling the guests, I will say that we were always in a line. It was organized chaos because of the number of people, and each time we moved to the next phase of the wait we were always in an organized line. So, that was ok with me as long as there was a method to the madness. It was just crazy that this was the way they chose to shuttle ticket holders into the event. I am also so thankful that W was as good as gold during the wait. He never complained and only asked me once to remind him why we were there! There were probably 10,000 more people there than when the Bush's did it. I don't remember that many people, that much need for the Z lines, etc. However, every administration does their own thing, and I assume the Obama's thought this was efficient. Once inside, we stayed until 1:30. So, we had plenty of time to do what we wanted.
William had a great time. He really did. We didn't entertain egg rolling, egg hunting or egg dying only because I knew those lines would be really long. So, he hit up the sports center, the craft area, the obstacle course, the golfing green, and then just ran around the hills of the south lawn. I was SO GLAD that I brought snacks and water. I thought they might take it all at security, but they didn't and we were able to find some shade and picnic while watching Glee perform. We even spotted Reese Witherspoon and her daughter in the crowd. I believe Reese was a celebrity guest reader for the story hour area.
I mostly wanted to attend the egg roll so that we'd have a chance to take William to the White House (obviously). More importantly, for 4 years the White House was a huge part of my life and I really, really wanted William to experience just being on the south lawn. And, of course I wanted pictures of him and the White House too!
William is a great age to attend the egg roll event because he just thinks it is all fun. He had no idea if he was missing out on something, he isn't passionate about any particular thing (ie face painting, Disney characters, egg rolling, etc.) so he was totally happy just doing the activities that we hit. They had a craft station and a sports area that he loved. So that was great. We saw the garden and they had a station where you could plant a seed to take home and he loved that.
They also had a "fruits of the garden" area where they gave out fruit and smoothies. The D.C. Children's Museum is coming in 2013, so they sponored a huge craft station for the kids to make kites, crowns, Easter bonnets, etc. William made a kite and told the gal helping him that the Easter Bunny brought him an airplane kite.
William also LOVED the sports area where he ran through an obstacle course and played several rounds of golf. He kept asking to go back to the "sports course." After running around, we finally got William to sit down long enough to have a snack and drink some water. You can see a few of the obstacle course pictures below:
I did feel like the crowds were much larger than when Bush was in office......the south lawn was packed but not so much that you couldn't move around. All in all, it was a wonderful day. Just being on the south lawn of the White House brought back a flood of memories. I am forever grateful to have worked for a President of the United States. I still can't believe I spent four years in the West and East Wings of the White House. Never in a million years would I have guessed it. Sometimes I have to just stop and say to myself, "can you believe you worked there and saw the President and First Lady every day?" Those years were a tremendous gift and I thank God every single day for the plan he has for my life.
0 comments:
Post a Comment