By Sunday morning, the snow had stopped falling, the sun was shining, and there were over two feet of snow on the ground! A quick check of the closures showed that everything that was closed yesterday was still closed today, but, for the time being, the 10:15 service we had planned to attend at the National Cathedral was still a go, so we ate, got dressed, and headed to the Metro.
My brother Thad had offered to pick us up at the Metro station nearest the cathedral and drive us over, for which we were very grateful. A one-mile walk didn’t sound too bad, but we had not accounted for the fact that NO sidewalks were clear! As soon as we exited the station, we spotted Thad, loaded up, and headed off to worship.
My dad met us at the National Cathedral, and we all sat down. Worship services there are Episcopal, which is basically how we worshiped in France. So the liturgy and progression of the service were very familiar to us.
Afterwards, we looked around the interior of the cathedral bit (it’s pretty impressive…you don’t usually see stuff like this outside of Europe!) while we waited for my brother Zech and sister-in-law Alyse to meet us. Here are a couple shots of the exterior.
Zech and Alyse finally found us, and we caravanned over to a mall, as several members of our party still had some Christmas shopping to do for the afternoon festivities! We grabbed a small lunch and spent some time wandering around a ginormous mall. For how bad the roads were, there were an awful lot of people in the mall on Sunday afternoon!
Around 3:00, we headed over to Thad’s place. We helped Thad get the Christmas dinner he had promised into the oven, while the kids hung out and watched some TV and Zech and Alyse wrapped presents.
After a truly delicious meal of ham, rosemary potatoes, green bean casserole, and rolls, the real fun began.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, our reason for being Washington DC this close to Christmas was to celebrate Thad’s graduation from a Diplomatic Security training program. As part of this program, Thad learned hand-to-hand combat, tactical driving skills, and weapon training. He learned how to handcuff people and stay in a fight after being pepper-sprayed. He was also given handcuffs, a retractable club, and a bullet-proof vest. After his graduation, he would also be issued a Sig Sauer handgun.
Immediately after supper, Thad entertained the kids by offering to handcuff them.
A bit later on in the evening, he let the kids try on his utility vest and bullet-proof vest.
While Uncle Thad did draw the line at letting the kids play with his club, he is still now officially the World’s Coolest Uncle. My kids had stars in their eyes and dreams of a law enforcement career when we left!
Between times of playing with Uncle Thad’s toys, we celebrated Christmas.
The happiest gift we all received was a piece of news…Zech and Alyse are expecting their first baby in July! He or she will make his appearance a few short months after our baby boy does, which means he will actually have a cousin close to his own age. (Charlotte is very jealous about this. She is also pulling for a girl cousin, as our baby will give her another brother!) I was finally able to give Alyse a gift I had bought for her in Egypt, a t-shirt that says “Baby” in hieroglyphics!
Here are a few more photos of us enjoying family Christmas.
Lots of fun!
As the afternoon progressed, however, Thad started getting calls from his classmates, asking him if he could confirm the rumors that the federal government would be closed on Monday! So, he started making some calls, and sure enough…no government offices would be open the next day.
In a way, we could understand why. The roads, especially the side ones, were still atrocious, and the buses were barely staggering along. The above-ground Metro lines were also still closed. Since about 80 percent of the people in this area work in some form or fashion for the federal government, it would make sense to just tell these people to stay home and off the roads so the plows and other equipment could work effectively.
However, this was distressing to us because we had Library of Congress, Capitol Building, and Supreme Court tours scheduled for the next day (all compliments of our congressman), as well as plans to visit the National Archives and the Air and Space Museum. With the federal government closed, we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to do any of these things, and, with our limited time, they were unlikely to be rescheduled.
But what do you do? We opted to just enjoy the rest of our day!
After gifts, we snacked on a sausage, cheese, and crackers, played Phase 10, and chatted until it was time to head back to the hotels. What a great way to spend a snowy Sunday!
Next time…salvaging our Monday!
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