One of the advantages of living in DC is that sometimes you can luck into really fun events. Last week, we found out that KaBOOM! had been given several tickets to the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.
This was my first time at the famous event. I really wasn't sure what to expect. To get tickets is considered a "score" by DC locals so I was excited. So was my mom in Ohio... And dad... and my sisters and my cousin in Jersey... etc.
Anyway, for all of those folks who have always wondered what it is like, here you go. It struck me as a quaint country fair, but without the food stands or Tilt-A-Whirl. There were lots of things to do: face painting, a "bunny trail" obstacle course, three stages, egg coloring, large costumed creatures of all sorts, and (of course) the egg roll. Otherwise, it was pretty much just lots of people walking around and trying to entertain their overstimulated children.
The egg roll itself was actually really small and contained. It was all fenced in, there were five or six "lanes" that you set your child on and the roll looked to be five- or six-feet long. It was one of the more crowded areas (and I was toting an excited 3-year-old) so I didn't get a picture (nor did I wait in line to participate). There's a picture on the White House site.
One of the other fun aspects of an event like this is the possibility of rubbing elbows with celebrities. I noticed that Lynne Cheney was going to sit in a lovely cushioned chair and read to all of the little children. We wandered off to the Elmo show and got back when we heard her voice over the speakers.
This is our view of Mrs. Cheney.
*sigh* We never did actually see her, no matter how much I jostled. Fine. OK. There's another excited knot of people over there. I grab my daughter, who is getting annoyed that I dragged her away from the six-foot duck creature to jostle at this new crowd, and we run as fast as her little legs can carry her to the knot. I catch a glimpse of Laura Bush. I'm going to get in this time, darn it. I owe it to my out-of-state relatives to at least look someone famous in the eye.
Here is my view of Mrs. Bush.
You can actually see the back of her head in the second picture. She's in the bright pink coat toward the center, top of the photo.
Thus was my brush with greatness.
*sigh* My child wants to go hug the giant walking banana again. We've hugged the banana three times now. He is now actively avoiding us. Wait! There! On the stage! It's Shrek! My daughter is a big fan of the stuffed Shrek that my husband bought for her at Christmas. "Better out than in," it belches.. over and over... and over again. Thanks, dear. That was almost as much fun as the day he brought home the Staples "easy button". We heard "That was easy" every 20 seconds until the batteries wore out.
But I digress....
We've met and hugged every other costumed creature on the South Lawn, now we get to the Big Green Guy himself. Shrek finishes his little song and dance about getting off your butt and exercise and leaves the stage. We hug the fence, waiting for a line of VIPs (mostly adults, I might add) have their photos taken with Shrek.
We wait and wait.
Shrek disappeared into a tent and we didn't see him again. In all fairness, he might have made a public appearance later, but we were getting tired, cold and hungry. We needed to leave.
Well, we couldn't leave on a down note. It really was a wonderful event that we were very lucky to be able to attend and I wanted my daughter to have happy memories of it.
Luckily, there was Clifford.
Clifford made it all better.