Phew, that was a whirlwind trip! On Wednesday evening we began our trip to Washington D.C. Since it was such a long drive we decided to book an inexpensive hotel room that night and continue the journey Thursday morning. The kids were excellent in the car, and slept most of the time. But once we got to the hotel room they were wide awake and full of excitement! We finally got to bed around 2am.

Thursday morning we woke up and finished the drive to D.C. Oh my goodness that city is crazy! There were so many people, and so many cars! We finally found a parking spot. Unfortunately, all of the parking was metered! I think we spent like $20 just to park for the day!

We got there just in time for the rally at noon. We loaded Ty and Jada into the double stroller, since it was quite a few blocks to walk to get to the Capitol, and I carried Xia in my new Maya Wrap.

There were thousands of people there. Man, was that an encouraging sight! There were some crazy protesters though. Some people who were yelling in a megaphone were wearing ugly masks and bloody shirts with naked, bloody baby dolls hanging from chains. Obviously, they were opposing abortion, but it wasn’t exactly something I wanted my kids to see! Fortunately, we were able to steer away from them before the kiddos noticed.

Other than that it was a really nice, family oriented rally. There were tons of families there and lots of kids. A lot of homeschool families. We were loaded with snacks and drinks so the kids were happy for a while. Titus loved it when everyone started yelling or chanting. He joined right in!

We made it sort of a field trip/learning experience for Jada. We explained why we were there and what was going on. I think it was really good for her to see us exercising our right to voice our concerns.

At about noon the doors to the Capitol opened and all of the Republican congress people came out and stood on the steps before us. It was an amazing thing to see. Everyone cheered! I didn’t expect them all to come out! The speakers were really good. After about an hour or more of listening, though, the kids got antsy, and were hungry for lunch. We decided that we’d better go find them some food, so we headed out.

I was disappointed that we didn’t go into the Capitol and find our congress woman, but there were SO many people there, it would have taken us forever to get in! (We later heard an estimate that there was 20,000 to 45,000 people there. That’s pretty good for only 3 days of planning this last minute rally!) I was surprised that they actually did let people in. We did call our representative though, and let her know that we were there and why we were there.

So, we got some food for the kids and visited the Smithsonian Museum. We took the kids to see the Dinosaur exhibits, and the Native American Museum, since those are two things Jada is really interested in right now. She also got to see the Constitution in the Archives building.

I wish we could have stayed longer but soon the day was over. As we were heading out a light shower came upon us. It rained softly for several minutes, and then when it stopped the most beautiful double rainbow came out. And from where we were it looked like it was right over the Capitol building! We hoped that was a good sign.

We loaded back up into the car around 6pm and began the long drive home. We drove through the night, and got back at about 1:30am this morning. I sure am glad to be home! All that traffic, the sirens, the crowds… not for me! But it felt really good to be a part of *hopefully* some change in this country.

Here’s an article about the protest, if you want more info.

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