A Fed in the Family

So, Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. finally brought us to our big reason for being in Washington DC this close to Christmas: my brother Thad’s graduation from Diplomatic Service training.

The State Department building is really nothing special from the outside but houses offices where some pretty big decisions get made day in and day out.  There are also some rooms here, called the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, that have some pretty cool antiques and historical objects in them.  My brother’s graduation ceremony was supposed to take place in these rooms, but, alas, they were closed for some renovations, so we ended up in a fairly standard (read: ugly) auditorium.

But first, we had to clear security, which was very tight.  All adults had to produce driver licenses, and everyone had to pass through metal detectors just to get in the building.  Once inside, we had to be checked off of a list (Thad submitted our names some weeks before) and issued a stick-on tag authorizing our presence in the building.  If we wanted to use the bathroom, we were escorted there in groups by an armed agent.

By 11:30, Zech, Alyse, my dad, and the four of us had scoped out seats a couple of rows behind where the graduates were sitting.  Thad pointed out some of the people in his class, including the guy who had bruised his ribs during hand-to-hand combat training and nearly caused him to drop out!  (The kids were especially eager to see him, as my brother is not exactly small!)

 

Around noon, the bigwigs, which included an ambassador and someone pretty high up in the Diplomatic Service, filed in, as did the graduates.  Speeches were made, awards were handed out (Thad was the runner-up in tactical maneuvers), and then the graduates received their badges.  (You know, the cool kind that the federal cops on TV show flash to people.)

 

Afterwards, Thad took us on a quick tour of some places in the building we could see; he was our official escort, although not yet armed!  (I think he got his gun later than afternoon.)  Here we all are!

Thad is very excited about his new career, which is going very well.  He’s liking it a lot and has jumped right in to investigations.  Here we got one last photo, official badge included, before we all had to vacate the premises.

So, after we all get completely back outside the building, Elijah realizes that he has left one of his gloves inside.  Yes, this is our child who would lose his head if it weren’t attached.  He had already lost his hat somewhere between the airport and our hotel upon arrival, and now he was down a glove!  And do you remember the security we had to clear to get in the first place?!

Poor Jeff.  He talked to the guard at the door, who told him he was welcome to try to get back through security, which only guaranteed him access to the lobby.  From there, he would have to convince one of the interior guards to escort him back into the auditorium.  We tried to call my brother, but he was already out-of-pocket.

By some miracle, Jeff did manage to get back into the auditorium, under escort, and recover the glove.  It was crazy, and Elijah got a stern lecture (again) on keeping up with his stuff!

Anyway, the afternoon was still young, and we had promised the kids a visit to the International Spy Museum.  We were off!

Seeing Green

Here’s a brief flood update…the meeting with the adjuster went well.  Our job is to get the basement dried out; insurance will cover all of our losses (carpet, personal property, etc.) up to our allowed amount.  In fact, Jeff, Mike, and Von will even get their labor reimbursed for Sunday!  The adjuster told us that we had done all the right things before he arrived, which was encouraging.  Now it’s just a matter of letting the dehumidifiers run, getting a carpet guy out here, and getting moved back down.

As I keep telling myself, it could be much worse!

While waiting for the adjuster, I spent Tuesday afternoon finishing the project I had started on Sunday afternoon before my kids found the “giant mud puddle” in the basement: re-covering my dining room chairs.  The last time I had this done was six years ago, and the chairs have had a lot of wear and tear and rips and stains since then.  I got online and decided that I could probably do the job myself this time with the proper tools.  Of course, it’s ironic that we’re doing this just before we welcome an all-new maker-of-messes into the family, but here’s the before and after!

 

 

Jeff laughs when I pick out curtains or fabric for anything in our main living area.  It is ALWAYS a variation of the same colors…maroon, gold, green.  I’m nothing if not consistent!  I had leftover fabric, so my next project is a matching valence.  I have it cut out and pinned, but my 30-year-old sewing machine no longer works after three years sitting in storage.  So, I guess I either have to borrow or buy one.  But I think I’ll worry about that after the mess in the basement is cleaned up.

Anyway…Tuesday in Washington DC was the day my brother Thad was to graduate from his Diplomatic Security training program, something he had spent the last eight months working toward.  We were due to report to the State Department Building around 11:00 a.m. to clear security and get seated before the noon ceremony.  (This is where Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s office is, so security is TIGHT.)

We had planned right along to squeeze in a visit to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing before the graduation, so we were up early and on the subway to try to make the first tour at 9:15.  Zech and Alyse were going to meet us over there, and that all went well.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is one of the places where money is printed in the United States, and this ended up being a really great tour.  Again, due to the weather, we found no crowds and only about 15 people total on our tour, which began with a brief video about the money-making process and continued with a guided walk through the actual factory.  As you might figure, no photos were allowed, but we got to see money rolling on the presses, people performing quality checks, and stacks of bills, cut and uncut, lying around.

Here’s one interesting fact:  check the serial numbers on your bills.  If there is a star at the end of any of them, you have a relatively rare Star Note.  Hang on to it; they are valuable at collectors’ items.  Starred notes result when a batch of bills doesn’t pass the quality inspection, and the serial numbers have to be rerun on a second set of bills.  Of course, none of us had a Star Bill in our pockets!

We ended our tour in the gift shop, where we could buy anything from bags of shredded money and other such cheesy souvenirs to beautiful engraved pieces of art and uncirculated bills.  The Bureau of Engraving and Printing makes all of the invitations to official White House events, and they carry a line of beautiful engraved prints.  Jeff and I bought a small print of the Bureau building and a Christmas ornament made of shredded money.

We also could find out how much a million dollars (shredded) we were tall!

I would highly recommend touring this sight if you ever visit Washington.  It’s lots of fun!  Plus, if you happen to be a teacher, tell the tour guide that.  My sister-in-law, Alyse, asked the guide about a copy of the video we were shown at the beginning of the tour, as she teaches graphic arts and wanted to show it to her students.  The tour guide brought her a free goody bag filled with small bags of shredded money, two DVDs, and lots of brochures and worksheets about the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.  Very cool!

After this tour, we rode the Metro back over to the Foggy Bottom area of town and walked to the State Department building, where we joined other friends and families of graduates in the security line.  And I’ll tell you all about that next time!

Afternoon at the Smithsonian

Back to Monday afternoon in Washington DC…

Around 12:30, we finally broke away from our congressman’s office and hoofed it over to meet my dad at the National Archives.  Before we left for Washington DC, I rented the first “National Treasure” movie, so the kids were pretty pumped to see the real Declaration of Independence.  (Nope, I’m not above using such things to promote their interest in history!)

In any case, we zipped right in, not a line in sight, and were virtually alone with the guards and some of America’s most precious papers.

The Declaration of Independence…

…the Bill of Rights…

…and the Constitution.  (At least, I think that’s correct.  They all kind of look the same in the pictures!)

 

Here are the kids at the entrance to the famous documents rotunda.  I think this is one of those places that everybody should see at least once.  I mean, how cool is it to see Ben Franklin’s original signature?!

While there are thousands of documents on display at the National Archives, we had seen the one that interested us most and decided to head to the Air and Space Museum for the remainder of the afternoon.

We grabbed a quick McDonald’s lunch in the museum food court and then spent the next couple hours looking around.  We took a 30-minute break to watch an IMAX film called “To Fly” and tried to see as much as we could otherwise.  One funny observation…this museum is not above capitalizing on Hollywood either!  Exhibits featured in “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” were prominently signed.

A few highlights were the Wright Brothers exhibit, complete with their original flying machine…

…aircrafts galore…

…and lots of space stuff.

To be perfectly honest, this museum was not my cup of tea, but the rest of my family greatly enjoyed it!

After a couple of hours here, my dad decided to head back to my brother’s apartment, and we decided to spend about 30 minutes taking a blitz tour of the Natural History Museum.  We greeted the famous elephant, dashed to see the Hope diamond, took a swift tour of the stuffed mammals and undersea exhibit, and ended with the dinosaurs.  Whew!

    

By this time, we were hungry and pooped.  However, Jeff had promised the kids a snowball fight, and they had been asking about it nonstop for three days.  I finally just told them that we needed to stop in a quiet area and just get it done with.  So that’s what Jeff and the kids did!  I stepped out of the way, and they whaled on each other for about five minutes.

 

Miraculously, no one took one to the face, and no tears were shed.  And both kids were very, very happy!

We had told my brother and sister-in-law that we would meet them for supper, so we wearily trudged toward the subway and rode over to Foggy Bottom, the area of DC where they were staying.  We found a cleverly-named place called the Froggy Bottom Pub, where we feasted on the evening special (half-price pizzas) and enjoyed great conversation.

Then, it was back to our hotel to rest up for the big graduation (among other things!) the next day.  Fun!

It Could Be Worse, Right?

Well, today (or actually yesterday) was supposed to be another post about our trip to Washington DC, but disaster intervened.

Some time between 11:30 Saturday night and 1:00 Sunday afternoon, the sump pump in our basement blew out, resulting in hundreds of gallons of water from one end to the other.  As you may or may not know, we do have (or did have) a finished basement, which means that we had saturated carpets and water up about two inches on the drywall in some parts.  Yes, indeed, this does include the newly-finished kids’ rooms.  In fact, Charlotte’s new room is right next to the sump pump, and the water reached probably an inch-and-a-half in there.

Here are the puddles in the carpet pad in Elijah’s new room.

This is the room with the sump pump; you can see how high the water got on the wall and on the cardboard boxes of Christmas stuff stored there.

 

This is the furnace room and storage under the steps.  You can see how high the wrapped pictures in front soaked up water.

Here is standing water in the playroom, the farthest corner from the sump pump.

 

What a mess.

We had no reason to go downstairs Sunday morning before church, so we didn’t.  We ate lunch in Peoria, arrived home about 1:00, and got ready for Jeff to run to Menard’s for some toy storage stuff for the basement that was on sale through yesterday and some new light switches and outlets for Elijah’s room.  The kids practiced piano and then ran downstairs to play the Wii, their normal Sunday afternoon routine.

They ran right back up, with Charlotte shouting, “Mom!  It’s like a giant mud puddle in the basement!”  Her socks were soaked.

I ran down, saw standing water on the carpet at the base of the steps, and realized what had happened.  I ran back up to stop Jeff from going to Menard’s.

Sure enough…the circuit had blown on the sump pump.  The last few days, we had had non-stop rain and temperatures near the forties.  This caused the six inches of the snow on the ground to melt, and evidently the ground had thawed just enough to overwhelm the pump.

(In a cruel irony, we got two new inches of snow and below-freezing temperatures back today.)

To make a long story short, I called our insurance company, and Jeff dashed to Menard’s to get a new sump pump, which he installed immediately, and two friends from small group showed up with a giant vacuum after I had posted a pitiful status report on Facebook.  These two guys, Mike Fiedler and Von Pugh, stayed at our house until after 9:00 last night, emptying our basement of stuff, pulling up carpet, hauling out the saturated carpet pad, and sucking up water.

We owe them a steak dinner.  At the very least.

I took the kids over to Mike’s house, where his gracious wife let me and the kids hang out for a few hours, as I could be very little help in the basement.  When I got back home, I spent a couple hours in the garage, emptying out ruined cardboard boxes.

Here is the current state of our basement.

 

To make the rest of a long story short…

We actually lost very little.  All of my notes and folders from graduate school are ruined, as are some college textbooks and some board games.  The kids lost or had damaged some Pokémon, Bakugan, and Webkinz cards, and many picture frames were damaged. 

However, I was able to remove most of the items in the frames before they could be damaged, as the cardboard backing and mats took the water first.  I thought that I had lost my wedding dress, but it ended up being wrapped in plastic inside the cardboard box, so I think it’s OK.  The only scrapbook that was damaged was one I had done of a trip to England and France in high school, and only two pages were really messed up.

This morning, Jeff rented three industrial dehumidifiers to try to suck the remaining moisture out of the basement.  We are hopeful that we can get the drywall and insulation dry and that repairs to those can be kept to a minimum.  As far as the carpet, we may just replace that, but we’ll see.

The silver lining?  Jeff had a rider put on our insurance for sump pump failure and water damage when we moved back, so we are insured up to $5,000 with a fairly low deductible.  The adjuster comes tomorrow afternoon.  Also, we spent the weekend looking at but not buying carpet and furniture for the kids’ new rooms.  When I think about how bad it would be if Jeff had actually finished this project on my ridiculous original schedule?  Wow.

And compared to, say, people in Haiti, this is barely a blip.

Nevertheless, I can’t quite wrap my mind around this mess yet, but the kids sort of enjoyed it.  A few comments…

Charlotte:  “Wow!  I’ve never been in a flood before!”

Charlotte and Elijah, as they high step and splash through the water:  “Can we play in the water rooms?

Charlotte:  “Man!  I can’t get my rubber duck to float!”

Elijah:  “This flood kind of stinks.  We won’t get to play Wii for a long time!”

Take deep breaths, Heatharlyne.  Take deep breaths.

Anyway, this, too, shall pass.  And it shall pass, with any luck, before this baby shows up in 11 weeks. 

I’ll keep you posted.

Home Life

Well, it’s the weekend, so I guess it’s time to post to my blog! 

Yesterday was the final day of my three-day-a-week “fast” from the computer.  I’m still undecided if I will continue to take days off.  I don’t think it’s much fun, which probably means I’m too dependent on/addicted to it yet and should continue to take days off.  The result of my fast…my house gets cleaned, I’m on February 13 in my daily Bible reading, and I’ve read lots of books, even more than I normally would be reading.

Voila…my quandary!

Here’s a quick update on the basement project…the bathroom is finished, both new bedrooms are painted, and the border is up in Elijah’s room.  We put all of the border up that we had in Charlotte’s room and are about six feet short; so, I’ve ordered one last roll, which should arrive by next weekend.

We shopped for furniture today, which amounted to getting another price on the trundle bed and chest of drawers that we want for Charlotte’s room and being told “Good luck!” on finding the metal furniture we want for Elijah’s.  Hmmm.

We also got some carpet samples today.  Elijah’s room should be pretty easy, but Charlotte’s…not so much.  Jeff is going to paint some leftover drywall with the green paint from her room, so we can have something bigger than a scrap a paper to take shopping with us next time.  We didn’t realize what a weird color it was until we tried matching carpet!

But all things considered, I’m pretty happy.  The end is definitely in sight!

I spent yesterday afternoon with my good friend Kathy Hunt and came home from her house with my van full of all of the baby clothes I will need for the first year, a baby swing, a Snugli, one of those wedges in which you can lay a baby on his side, and a baby bathtub.  The hours and the money that she saved me in going to consignment shops and garage sales…wow!  What a blessing!  God is good.

Wednesday will mark Week 29 of this pregnancy.  I’ve started seeing my doctor every two weeks, and April is galloping toward me at an alarmingly fast rate.  Yikes! With any luck, we’ll actually have a name by the time he’s born!  Here are a couple of updated baby bump photos.

 

In other news, the kids are testing for their green belts in Tae Kwon Do on Monday.  They earned their black pants a couple weeks back and are now assistant leaders, which means they can help lead the class in stretches and such if they are the highest ranking belts in the class.  They were pretty excited, as it’s a bit unusual for kids with only orange belts to earn them.  We’re proud of them, and I’m sure I’ll have pictures to post.  Maybe I’ll even figure out how to post a video!

Well, I think that brings you up to date on what’s been going on at Chez Wilkes.  Next time…back to Washington DC!

Salvaging Monday

When we woke up in Washington DC on Monday morning, Jeff immediately got online to figure out what was open and what was not.  He discovered that the Library of Congress was not opening, which meant that our 8:30 guided tour was off.  Nothing was posted about the Supreme Court or the Capitol building.

So, we waited until about 8:30 and then phoned our congressman’s office.  To our great relief, our 10:00 Capitol tour was, indeed, still on.  Even better news was that the Smithsonian museums would be opening that day, as well!

Thankfully, our Monday of touring was salvaged!

We arrived at Capitol Hill around 9:30 and decided to head over to the Supreme Court, just in case it was open, so we could finalize our plans.  (In case you didn’t know, the Supreme Court building, the Library of Congress, and the Capitol building are all right next to each other but a bit off from other sights, which is why I scheduled them all on the same day.)  Jeff asked the guard on the steps the status and was informed that the building was, indeed, closed but would probably be open the next day.

As my dad wanted to meet when we were done touring to go to the National Archives with us, this was good to know, so we called him and arranged a meeting place and time.  Then, we headed to Congressman Aaron Schock’s office for our personal tour of the Capitol building.

 

A word of advice for anyone who wants to visit Washington DC:  USE YOUR CONGRESSMAN OR SENATOR!  You can simply go to their websites and find the link for planning a trip to the capitol city.  I submitted forms to both Representative Schock and Senator Dick Durbin. Both responded quickly, and both set up tours for the Library of Congress and the Capitol building, which gave us the choice of which ones to schedule.  You have to go through your congressman or senator to get a White House tour, and Aaron Schock’s office went the extra mile to get us scheduled (more on that later).  It’s easy, and they want to help! 

 

We were welcomed to Aaron Schock’s office by an intern, who took our coats and bags and told us that we could leave them in the office, so as to avoid any hassle when we started touring.  The office buildings are connected to the Capitol building by tunnels, so we wouldn’t have to worry about needing our coats.  Very cool!

Next, we met another intern and our tour guide, Ashley, a recent college graduate from Mackinaw, Illinois, a town not far from where we live.  She walked us underground to the Capitol building and proceeded to give us a fantastic tour of where her boss worked.  We were the only people with her, and we stood in no lines and came through back and side doors the whole time!

Some highlights…

This hall of marble statues.  Each state is entitled to two statues somewhere in the Capitol building.  Illinois’s statues are pictured below; actually, the state of Illinois is one of the only states to submit a woman, although I can’t remember who she is!

Of course, the Capitol dome is always a wonder.

 

We also enjoyed looking at the old congressional chamber, where we could see the location of Abraham Lincoln’s desk, among other note worthies.

We could also stand on the former exact center of Washington DC in the Capitol building.

Our final destination in the Capitol building should have been the House chambers, but, alas, they too had fallen victim to the federal government closure.  Ashley was a bit put out by this.  “They are supposed to be open, no matter what!” she informed us.  But she quickly rallied and asked if we’d rather see the Senate chamber.  As the Senate was still in session debating the Health Care Reform bill, its chambers were definitely open.

So, Ashley procured tickets, we went through two additional rounds of security in which we had to check our cameras, and we took a seat in viewing chamber.

Although we couldn’t take photos, this visit is noteworthy based on what we did not see.  The Senate was supposed to be in session at noon sharp, and it was.  However, there were only two senators in the chamber when this happened…the senator who drew the short straw to be presiding and the one who drew the other short straw to read a statement into the record, mostly for the sake of C-SPAN, we suspect.

We asked Ashley why there were only two of 100 people that showed up to work.  She told us that it was fairly normal; the senators show up to vote and if they want something in the record.

Unbelievable…our government at its best!  We watched about ten minutes of that nonsense and headed back out!

Our tour lasted a bit over two hours and was extremely interesting.  Even the kids, who have been studying American history this year, paid attention and asked intelligent questions.  We were proud of them!

At this point, we were running a bit behind in meeting my dad at the National Archives, so we hustled back to the office, took a quick tour there (Aaron Schock was back in Illinois for Christmas), thanked Ashley, and hoofed it over to where my dad was waiting.

And I’ll tell you about the rest of our Monday next time.