My first appointment of the day was with Senator Ben Nelson's office. I met with Mike Hogan, the senator's chief of staff. Brandon Jack and Danny actually stayed in the hallway because a stillbirth mom joined me in the meeting and she is still having a hard time being around children so I was trying to be sensitive to her and her feelings. I told him the story of Danny's birth and why I felt it was important for the Senator to support the Stillbirth and SUID prevention, education, and awareness act being introduced by Senator Lautenberg of New Jersey. We had an associate from a public policy firm with us (fancy name for lobbyist!) who gave all the details of the bill. Mr. Hogan was very receptive to our visit and even came out and met the family in the hallway after our meeting. This shouldn't have surprised me but the meeting was very, well, political! There were lots of discussions of who was already supporting the bill and so and so has a close personal relationship with so and so thinks they can get support from so and so, etc. I guess I knew that's how it worked but to see it live and in action was very weird. One of the quirky things about the Senate building - the Senator's have their own elevator! Kind of odd!
Next we had our appointment with Congressman Jeff Fortenberry's office. We met with his senior legislative aid, Diana Tasandi. The whole family got to go this time. The stillbirth mom didn't join us so she asked me to speak on her behalf as well. Jack got to color thanks to the lobbyist that was with us who also had a young child and had crayons in his briefcase! According to the lobbyist the act is being introduced in the Senate and they are looking for a companion bill in the House. The House building also has elevators for Representatives only! We of course hit that button on accident.
After our meeting with Congressman Fortenberry's office we had to leave right away so we could catch our flight out of Baltimore. I was bummed because I had an appointment scheduled with Senator Johanns office for the morning but it had been rescheduled to 2:00 pm and I had to miss it! That appointment was actually with the Senator himself too! I was very disappointed to miss it, but First Candle was going to send another mother from Nebraska in my place so hopefully that went ok.
We stopped at the hotel on the way to the airport to change clothes (we were all schnazzed up!) and checked out before heading to the airport. We thought we had left in plenty of time, but we ran into trouble on the way to the airport! We had an awful time on the way back finding an exit that had food and gasoline for the rental car. The exit we ended up finding was probably 20 minutes out of the way total. That combined with traffic trouble resulted in a missed flight! This was so frustrating because the whole reason I missed the meeting with Senator Johanns was because we had to catch our flight, and now we were going to be sitting in the airport for over three hours. The good and bad news was that they were able to rebook us on a later flight. While we were standing in line at the airport Brandon said "Hey, where's my phone?" That was when we discovered he left it in the rental car that we had just returned! So at that point since we had missed our flight anyway we jumped back on the rental car shuttle and luckily they had found it in the mini-van. It cracked me up that they busted Brandon's chops about the phone. They made him describe the phone, despite the fact that it had a picture of the boys on it and they were standing next to him when he was describing the phone!
We got back to the airport and took our flight to Chicago where we got another not so pleasant surprise. Our flight to Omaha was delayed due to maintenance, until after 10 pm! Meaning we wouldn't get into Omaha until 11:30 and we still had a 2 hour drive after we landed. The boys actually did great considering, except Jack had a 10 minute meltdown as we were boarding the flight to Omaha because he couldn't watch his letter movie. I saw the poor guy in front of us cover his ear, I felt so bad! Surprisingly I just gave Jack the case to the movie and he stopped. I wanted to celebrate that he had stopped screaming! He stayed awake the whole flight even though his head was bobbing. We had bad luck even when we got back to Omaha. Our shuttle to the parking lot took forever and it started to sprinkle. Then once we got on the shuttle Jack bawled because he couldn't have his own seat. He was SO over-tired. He had to sit on Daddy's lap because there were no other seats available. Then we were the last ones dropped of at our vehicle, so at that point it was 12:30! Brandon and I weren't even sure what to do at that point, if we should get a hotel or just push through and get home. We decided to just get home because Brandon was still determined to go to work the next morning. Which he did by the way! I went in late!
So that concludes our big adventure! I hope you have enjoyed reading about it and seeing the pictures! Now you can see why when people ask me how the trip was my response is - it was the best of times and the worst of times!
Library of Congress
The Capitol
The Supreme Court
The Hart Building (Senate Offices)
Union Station
Union Station is amazing! We parked here when at Capitol Hill. They have lots of stores and restaurants but we didn't have time to check them out. Parking there for just 2 hours cost $12!
The cherry blossoms were just starting to bloom!
The kids getting bites of Daddy's leftover cheesecake (Mommy's cheesecake was gone a long time ago!). They loved it!
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