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ICE Fun... but WHAT a Day!

Boy! Slow day in Blog Land today! I only got 4 comments? LOL! Y'all must have been as busy as I was! Granted most of my business was driving! National Harbor is about an hour from my house. But Luz's house is about 4o minutes ... in the other direction! So I picked her up, we went, and then I took her home and came home -- that was a LOT of driving!

The day didn't go exactly as I planned. (do they ever?) Luz was a little moody at first... not even really wanting to GO do this! I had been trying NOT to tell her a lot about it, because I really wanted her to be surprised. But I ended up having to tell her, because honestly the idea of going and walking through a cold COLD building to looke at ICE just wasn't appealing to her! LOL! So I ended up telling her about the castle and the slide and then she started getting excited. We stopped to eat before going... I didn't want any starving bodies. But the area that IS National Harbor is very VERY verrrrrrrry UPscale! There is NO McDonalds! But there is a place called Ketchup that I had been wanting to try. So we went there. Oh my gosh! It was sO totally even MORE upscale than I expected it to be! I mean c'mon -- KETCHUP? I was thinking hot dogs and hamburgers! No. We ended up just ordering appetizers because we only had about 40 minutes to eat and get over to ICE to pick up our 2:30 tickets. I tried to eat light - but it was almost impossible. Luz had ordered teeny tiny chicken tacos that I KNEW she wasn't going to like, but that was all she wanted - the problem being I knew I wasn't going to like them either - they had cilantro and I do NOT do cilantro! So Mom ended up eating them - I doubt she liked them either - but she'll eat anything you put in front of her. Luz & I shared my fruit and cheese plate and the crab dip came with FRIED bow tie pasta to dip in it. I didn't like THAT at all! I ended up wishing I had not tried Ketchups and had taken her to Grace's Mandarin instead! We ALL would have been happier!

We left there at 2:00 to walk (because there are only a couple of parking garages - you must WALK around National Harbor - which is fine when it's not 17F out -- but today was quite bitter!
And Mom moves sloooooow. And when it's cold and she should move faster, she moves slower! But we did make it in time for our tickets. And Luz DID enjoy the show! VERY much! She was amazed by it! But I have GOT to say that if I ever take her again... and I will... but it will NOT be the last weekend that it's open! It will NOT be on ANY weekend! Mom & I had gone the 2nd day it was open - which was a Thursday and it was empty! Next time I will take Luz on a day when school is IN session and I will leave Mom with somebody! The show was JAM PACKED wall to wall blue coats today! Such a totally BAD place to take an Alzheimer patient I just couldn't even believe I was actually there! EVERY person wearing identical coats and hoods and there was NO way Mom could keep track of ME. Luz couldn't even keep track of me! I lost Mom TWICE and Luz once!!! Talk about stress! And it was much easier finding Luz because she was the only person in the place that did NOT have to wear a blue coat! I had put her snow pants on her before we got there and so they let her go. But Mom had a blue coat and hood too... so finding HER once she went missing was not an easy task! And then! Ohhhhhhh and then... (we DID do this at the restaurant!) thankfully we were ALMOST done going through... when Luz said "Nana, I need to use the restroom" -- and there isn't one IN there! There are porta potties OUTSIDE (in 17F weather!) orrrrrrrrr... you walk back to a restaurant or one of the public restrooms in the parking garages. We could NOT use a porta potty with all the clothes Luz had to take off! NO WAY! And she did NOT think she could make it all the way back to a restaurant -- she didn't think she could make it out of the tent!!! I decided the closest restroom was in the garage I'd parked in, and that's where we went! And she made it! And then we got in the car and drove halfway home to McDonalds to get hot chocolate! And she had two cookies and mom had one -- and PROUD I am that I had NONE! Cuz a cookie is NOT cake and I can resist them! I also had coffee rather than hot chocolate. So that was our exciting day and below is a little slide show of some of the fun!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

posted by Melli at 10:03 PM