Expectations and Results

One of the things that my wife wanted to have happen on this trip she took to DC was that she'd get the time to just hang out with our daughter. Not that we don't see her routinely, but a great deal of the time, it's either focused -- going here, there, making dinner, that sort of thing -- or our daughter's in her room.

Well, she got her wish, and then some. It wasn't entirely painless -- there was a forty-five minute interval when they were waiting for her aunt, who was late (again, though not entirely her fault, this time), and our daughter had a meltdown, saying that she didn't care if she went to the restaurant or not, which attitude was exacerbated by her grandmother coming over and saying that she was 'disappointed' in her, which didn't help one bit, and things got worse when she discovered that the restaurant they'd waited so long to be driven to was actually a block and a half away from the hotel -- we could have walked there and back!!!!

But it got better.

First off, she loved the restaurant -- loved the food -- I had pasta and vegetables, they mixed them together, which I thought UGH but it turned out to be not that bad, actually it was pretty good ... and the creme brulee, it was to die for, I am not kidding, and mom had a chocolate cake that was totally awesome.... and a grilled cheese made with asiago cheese, it was sooooo good. So, that worked out.

Then they went for a walk along the Reflecting Pool, where apparently some of the stimulus money's going to be spent cleaning and refurbishing the layout. When they got to the end, where the Lincoln Memorial is, the others didn't want to climb the stairs, so just she and my wife did, with the result that not only did they get to see the view -- and alone, yet, no other tourists there -- as well as the monument itself, but they had about twenty minutes together, where they just talked about a whole range of things, serious and not.

Which, she liked so much that last night, when I was picking her up from color guard, she asked me to just drive around so that she could tell me at length about the trip and how much she enjoyed it - and then just segued into talking generally about how things were going with her, what she was reading, and all of that.

Successful trip? I'd say so.