you too could come visit me

A couple of days ago I found out we were having a surprise last minute visitor for the weekend!  My good friend Tori was able to come stay with us.  I was really excited.  There are two kinds of family, the kind you are born into and the kind that you meet along the way and chose for yourself.  I am lucky to have great great people to call family!

however the trip has brought more disasters excitement than either one of us bargained for.

so, I couple of days ago while driving the kids home from school we saw flashing lights in our mirror. What?? I don't speed, every one was buckled, I used my turn signal...what could it be?  It was an expired tag that brought us to our pleasant roadside visit with MD's finest.  The officer was very nice and I was very polite, and the children were very shocked and at the end of the encounter I had a $290 ticket and an invitation to renew my tags...asap.  Darn it.

I went on line and paid the renewal but my laptop  would not talk to my printer so I couldn't print out the little sticker that goes in the window as a temporary tag. 

now that the background is out of the way on to the story:

Friday  morning I took Lucy to get her stitches out.  It went well.  Then took her to school and headed off to the airport.  The weather was lovely and I was looking forward to seeing Tori.  I pulled into the pick up passengers spot and saw flashing lights behind me (heart sunk)  So I rolled down my window, got out my license and waited.  Was it the tags again??  Yep.  The officer again was so nice.  I told him my sad story.  He went to look it up and didn't find a record of me having renewed my tags.  I DO NOT know why.  He went back and conferenced with his partner while I got to tell T my sordid tale.  Finally he came back and handed back my first ticket and told me to quickly get the situation straightened out.   Off to a good start.

We parked the car, went to the metro, made our way through it's labyrinth like route and came out on the mall.  I have been wanting to see the Constitution and haven't gotten to since I am always down there with the children and I didn't think they would enjoy the national archives very much.  It was a lovely lovely day in DC.  The weather was perfect, the crowds were light, and we were having a fun time.  We made our way to the archives, watched a movie that was interesting then went to the rotunda where we visited the historic documents.  It was very neat.   After that we ate lunch and headed back.

Things were going well until we started our drive home.  My car, which has been in the shop several times recently started to feel funny.  I felt like it was struggling.  Then it got worse and worse so that it was slipping out of gear and having to rev up to gain back power.  Eventually I found a place to pull over and tried the "turn it off and turn it back on" trick that serves me so well in many situations.  Nothing.  Lots of noise, no movement.  Movement is an important part of automobile transportation.  So I called R.  The I called State Farm, then I felt grateful for our smart phones.  Then T and I both called and called.  Her insurance sent us a tow truck.  So nice.  No one had a rental car.  No shop answered my call.  Finally one did.  Still no rental cars available.  Strange. Tow truck arrives.  Driver is nice but super oddly chatty and we learned his whole life story, and saw the track marks on his arms, and survived our drive unscathed and unafraid but with an "interesting" fellow to log in the memory bank. 

Meanwhile I called Laura who agreed to come to my rescue.   Thank you!!  So once at the Chevy dealer we waited.  Watched a little Judge Judy.  Then L arrived and drove us home, stopping at Colleens to get the girls and dropping us at Salsas.  I am so grateful to her. 

Salsas was delicious, the kids were falling asleep at the table (it was almost 9 o'clock by then) and then we came home. 

After scriptures and prayers R and Calvin headed back up to Waldorf to tow our car home because they can fix it for cheaper and we went to bed. 

So if you want to witness a friend chat with a cop, take the wrong metro, look at old documents, have car trouble in the ghetto and starve until late at night I know just the place for you to visit!