After two years, someone from my family finally came to see me!! My grandparents, who got home from their mission in May, are taking a big cross country road trip, visiting places they've never seen and people they love along the way. They admitted that they wouldn't have visited DC if I wasn't here, but I'm so glad they did.
They arrived last Wednesday before I got home from work, and patiently waited for me. After the grand tour, they took me out to my favorite Chinese restaurants, Jasmine Garden.
I arranged to take the rest of the week off work, so that their vacation was my stay-cation. Thursday, we took a tour of the Library of Congress (of course), followed by a stop at the National Archives (of course). We had a picnic lunch in the shadow of the Washington Monument, or rather, in a shadow of some trees across the street from it. We spent the afternoon on what turned out to be one of my favorite things of the weekend, a walking tour for tips of the monuments, from DC By Foot. I'd spent time at almost all of them before, but I learned a lot of new things and trivia, which has already come in handy. That night, we had Josh & Courtney & Co. over for dinner, so I finally proved to them that I do have family, as I've pretty much met all of theirs.
Friday, I discovered that the webmaster for the National Cathedral has no idea how to get there via metro, so we scrapped that plan and just went to the Zoo. It was a lovely Zoo day. Unfortunately, on the way home, I did something I never want to do again.
I lost my grandmother.
At the Woodley Park-Zoo metro stop, Grandma got on the train, but Grandpa and I didn't. Grandpa was quite calm about the whole thing, and we both hoped that she would be waiting for us at Metro Center, if see remembered that we were to change at Metro Center in the first place. We were wrong. Grandpa waited, unmoving, whilst I backtracked and searched every stop between the two. When I came back, sans Grandma, Grandpa had me run up to street level and call her. Hooray for cellphones! An angel had pointed her in the right direction, and she was waiting for us at the home stop. I was so relieved!
We celebrated our reunion by going to the temple, and either Grandpa or I, or both, were holding her hand almost the whole rest of the night.
They left early Saturday morning, which made for a very short trip, but I'm just delighted that they spent any amount of time here at all. I love you both!
For those of who haven't visited me yet - my futon is currently vacant. So what are you waiting for?
The rest of my wonderful stay-cation involved my "nephew's" first birthday (how is he already a year old!?), meeting the rest of his grandparents (told you I've met Josh & Courtney's whole family), and watching the last of the Olympics (miss them already!).
I really enjoyed seeing my dear grandparents and my local "family", and having a great 4 days off before heading back into work and school. Thank you for coming!
2 comments:
I'm glad you found your Grandma. We've been terrified of losing my mom when we visit DC. Luckily she's always found home.
Oh my goodness! Good thing you were able to find her. :) I've never lost my grandmother, but I thought I almost lost my little sister in Hollywood this past May. Turns out she had just stopped to buy a Wicked t-shirt without telling me. Scary stuff, though. (And the D.C. metro system can be a little overwhelming to someone who's never used it before...but it's so much cleaner than L.A.'s!! I miss it.)
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