Tour of the Capitol

This was the last day in Washington D.C. and we would make our way west. The evening came to an end with my son watching the New York Mets baseball game on television in the hotel room. Even my daughter seemed to be interested in the game and they (more so my son) have become very good sports fans over the past two years. My brother-in-law did threaten (all in good fun) my son that he still needs to root for the New York Mets and New York Giants even though he will now be a resident of California. I can deal with this because I have been a Mets fan all my life and have adopted the Giants over the past few years. My son did seem to even know the players on the Mets as he watched the game.

The evening was wonderful and we dried off from being caught in the rainstorm as a family eating dinner in the hotel room. Everyone seemed to fall asleep rather quickly since we did a great deal of walking during the day. It was a full day and we took in all of what my daughter wanted to see in Washington D.C. Again my son asked me if I was going to workout in the morning and I wasn’t very committed to this since we did do a great deal of walking during the day and I knew my son needed more rest in the morning so I said, “we will see”.

I didn’t get up early to workout because I knew my son would have wanted me to wake him up and the best course of action was getting the extra hour of sleep. My son seemed to be a bit confused when he heard me talking with my wife as he got up and wanted to go workout. We informed him that I wasn’t going to workout and then he returned to bed making himself comfortable. This was so cute and I have to admit my son is so very cute in so many ways. He has such a great personality and is so loveable. It is impossible not to smile when I look at my son and this personality is very consistent day in and day out.

We all woke up and started the day. There seems to be an inevitable amount of inertia for my family because we never seem to get out on time. I can start well in advance of our scheduled departure time but something always delays us. This morning it was the case of the missing goggles. My son and daughter had left their swimming goggles by the pool the other evening and I forgot to take them so we had to find the goggles this morning. This took some time as the right person from the hotel needed to be contacted and we finally did find the goggles.

With the mystery of the goggles solved the mini-van was packed and we were headed into Washington D.C. for a tour of the Capitol building. Parking in this area is not an easy task and after a very long time of searching I finally found a parking spot. We were getting a private tour of the Capitol building and a very dear friend had set this up for us. We met our tour guide and made our way over to the Capitol building.

The tour itself was very good and very fascinating. The children seemed to enjoy themselves and I must say my son seemed to be more interested in everything then my daughter. I thought this would have been the reverse because the trip to Washington D.C. was my daughter’s idea. Also I thought my son would have more issues with the move back to California but the comment he made as we were leaving New Jersey put that thought to rest. My son stated, “come on, let’s go already,” as we were waiting to depart from New Jersey. He is the character of the family and my daughter seems to be moving into the teenage years a few years earlier.

The tour was indeed very good and we got to see the House of Representative’s floor where we watched the “banging of the gavel”. I have seen this floor countless times on the CSPAN and now seeing it in person it looks so much smaller then it appears on television. This seems always to be the case as I remember visiting the set of Saturday Night Live a number of years ago and this set is tiny in person and to this day I don’t know how they fit all those people in the audience. Anyhow after the very good tour our children were rewarded with some chocolates from the tour guide which made it even more special.

After the tour we made our way across town to meet a friend of mine. This friend works in Washington D.C. and is a new friend to me over these past three years. There has been a whole new avenue of friends over the past three years and all of these friends are a direct result of being in recovery. Without recovery my life is nothing and in recovery my life is everything in every way possible.

The meeting with my good friend went well but yet again as we tried to get on the road we were delayed. We needed to mail some of our excess things and this caused a two hour delay but this didn’t matter at all. We finally got on the road and made our way west. We were indeed heading westward as a family and what a difference two years makes as we were heading eastward two years ago.

Back two years ago there were a great deal of unknowns and now there are still some unknowns but the fact that we are now all together means everything. I know and continue to experience the working out for the very best of everything. All of this has happened and continues to happen for a reason. I love this reason and I love being with my family.