Washington, DC Report

The bulk of this post is by our Washington correspondent, Liz.

I had an amazing time at the inauguration! It was an overwhelming
experience and such a wonderfully positive day. We spent hours waiting
in huge crowds of people, and no one was upset or annoyed. It was a
day of a shared sense of joy and awe and inspiration! We met people
from all parts of the country - South Carolina, Texas, California,
Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts. It was so inspiring to know that
this event energized people not just in the DC area, but across the
country, and the world. At various times throughout the day
spontaneous chants for Obama, patriotic songs and cheering erupted. It
was awesome!

My friend Lacey and I were near the Washington Monument, and watched
the big event on a huge jumbotron. We couldn't even see the Capitol
building, but no one seemed to mind. In fact, we were almost a mile
from the actual event but it didn't matter! We were there to witness
history!

Thanks Liz for that first-hand account. I'm glad I knew someone who was in that big gathering.

I stayed home from school again today and on the advice of several people calling themselves "doctors", I have called for a sub for tomorrow. I have never missed so much time at school with the exception of when I had to have knee surgery after an accident at school. I feel better today, but still am quite fatigued and if I talk for more than 5 minutes, I go into a coughing fit. Now my students might like it if I couldn't talk, but that is just not an ideal situation for a teacher. 

Tomorrow night Jim's running buddy, Steve, will be here from Williamsburg, VA. We are saving the really cold weather until he gets up and out on Saturday morning!

Tucker called tonight telling us of his final preparations for his month-long trip to Mexico. He and his buddy leave on Sunday. Tucker has been studying Spanish and when I asked how that was going, he said, "Bueno!" The boy is brilliant!

Hope all is well. And thanks again to Liz, for making today's blog entry much more interesting than the Kleenex count I was going to post!