44 presidents already? Inauguration recap

Time has been flying, what with my busy starting a moms group and the inauguration and all.

Elliott got to go to the Sunday "We Are One" concert on the Mall. One Tuesday, his dad biked down to to the Jefferson Memorial and watched the swearing in on the Mall while Elliott stayed home with Grandma B and Roland (need to get those cute pictures of E looking at Obama on the TV). That morning, Elliott's mom had gotten up early to join a friend who had great tickets to a section right in front of the Capitol. They got stuck on a very full Metro that then broke down and put considerable effort into getting through the crowds to leave the station. They were luck that a cab came by and took them over the bridge in mere minutes. Then the walks to the ticket gate and from the ticket gate to the orange section seats were long and meandering (lots of street blockages and such).

After the swearing-in, E's mom found herself (with her friend) in a frightening mosh pit of humanity that was moving only further away from Virginia. After 4 hours of wandering the city (including 45 minutes at her friend's friend's office in the Russell Senate Office Building), she finally caught a bus and then another bus and was picked up by Elliott and his dad. Two hours and half a chicken later, Elliott was asleep and his Grandma B and Roland and, later in a separate cab, his mom and dad were all headed off to a ball where water cost $3 and leaving the throng watching Sheryl Crow to chase after a lost wrap/jacket catapulted E's mom out of her decent spot and had her texting E's dad that she was sitting by the escalators and wanting to go home. (When one has something approaching PTSD from crowd crunch that morning, it doesn't sound appealing to push one's way into any kind of dense group of humanity). But eventually, mama and daddy were reunited and they did get to see the President and First Lady before rushing home to their tired babysitter (after a freezing walk to the metro for an 11-minute wait, a not-too-crowded train and a waiting cab). The boy woke right after his parents got home, so the 'rents stripped off their finery in record speed and climbed into bed.

Sorry the photos are out of order -- Blogger does it that way and I always forget to load backwards. Moving isn't so easy.