Yes We Did!

On Monday night we took Elle and Seb to DC to get a glimpse of the inauguration excitement. Sebastien, our friendly little guy, waved to a man in the metro elevator. The man, Mr. Geiss, asked Sebastien where he was from. We had nice conversation and he mentioned how nice he thought it was that we took time to bring our kids to be apart of things. Unexpectedly, he pulled out two tickets to the inauguration and said, "Here, have a nice time tomorrow." We were shocked! He was attending the inauguration and had these extra tickets for someone else. Lucky us! Our friend Chefi offered to watch Elle and Seb while we went to the inauguration. We had a fantastic time. We felt lucky to happen upon tickets to Bush's inauguration and even luckier to get tickets to see Obama sworn in. It was a day we'll never forget. We were most impressed by how happy everyone was despite the cold and the crowd. There were a lot people around us crying during the ceremony, dancing, singing.... Even though it was really cold and crowded, our day was incredible.

Eleanor and Sebastien at the north side of the Capitol the night before inauguration.




Getting out of the metro and deciding which way to go to get to our gate. We saw and talked to Paul Begala, from CNN.
We were erroneously directed to the purple gate entrance by a police officer. We stood in this crowd for an hour and a half, moving only half a block. The crowd threw a fit when several ambulances tried to get through, making us pack even tighter together than we already were. Later we found out these people never got onto the mall, even with tickets.
This was our view most of the time waiting.
Snipers everywhere.
This guy was on his way to work and got stuck in the crowd. He held his bike up across two blocks of people. He was shouting, "Excuse, me, sorry, trying to get through to work!"
We bagged the purple line. When we got to a cross street we made a break for it and ran through the 395 tunnel underground up to Virginia Ave. and found ourselves in the same situation on the other side at the Silver Gate. We actually had silver gate tickets. At 11:20 (inauguration started at 11:30) the officers announced they were closing the gates. Someone in the crowd yelled, "Everybody hold up your tickets!" and started us all chanting, "Let-us-in! Let-us-in! Let-us-in!" The officers abandoned the screening point, opened the gates and we all shoved our way onto the mall.

All the trees were taken.
Bill Murray. ? One of several celebrity sightings.
We held our camera back above our heads to get an idea of what was going behind us.
Obama's speech.



When inauguration ended, everyone skated around the reflecting pool. It's a foot deep, Gabe got off when it started cracking.

Watching the farewell to Bush on the jumbo tron, leaving on the other side of the capitol.
Bush leaving for Texas.


The trash along the entire mall was reportedly cleaned up by that evening.
The view behind us.

We signed this guy's inauguration flag. He was looking for someone from every state.
The potties.
The east side, on our way home toward Union station.
Lining up for the parade.
The line to Metro at Union station.
We parked at Kelly Stewart's house (our old house) and took the bus in to the metro. This is a picture of us post-inauguration.
Elle fell asleep at Chefi's house watching Cindarella. Chefi's kids and our kids had a lot of fun together. Seb and Kevin even had a bath together. Thanks, Chefi!