Night at the White House

We spent Friday night at the White House with some friends. Yes, it was the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; but no, we didn't get to meet our host. We were there with 1500 other guests waiting to get tickets for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.
According to the instructions that they give with tickets:

By participating in the 2008 White House Easter Egg Roll, you and your family join a tradition dating to 1878. Now, as then, a child must be accompanied by an adult and any adult must be escorted by a child.

The line of tents and folding chairs stretched around the Ellipse and up the street, then zig-zaged through a lawn. The first-in-line, sporting "first in line 5 years running" t-shirts, arrived at 3:00 AM on Friday. We were 672-677 in line.

My good friend Rebecca experienced this last year, and recruited the Robinsons and us to join in the wait. Clinton drove Emily, Rebecca, and I to the white house with the tent and gear, arriving at 6:00 p.m. and then went back to get Juan and KC after work was done and kids were in bed and the babysitters settled. We enjoyed a full moon and a temperate 39 degree low. It was the first time I actually used a space blanket [Thanks Emily] and I was very impressed. They tell you that they're good - and they're right.

After our gallant husbands arrived with burgers and fries we played some games - Clue and Password. Juan often requests Clue, and his wife often wins. Password is new for us and we really liked it. A very good group game, not likely to break any chairs as we did at Mom's in Utah last week. We finally rolled into our beds around 1:00 in the morning.

Shortly after 3:00 the park rangers walked the line and called us out. Everybody rolled out and staggered into line for the numbered vouchers that would allow us to get our 5 tickets in the morning. It takes some time to walk a line to sound the warning, and then to start over passing out the vouchers, so it was after 4:00 when we crawled back into our beds.

6:00 saw considerably more stirring in the camp than the previous hour, and we were among the drowsy, tousle-headed crowd rolling up sleeping bags and munching on bagels with cream cheese in order to comply with the directive that all tents should be struck and packed up by 6:45. I helped the men haul gear to the van while Rebecca and Emily stood in line. Of course we had numbers, but a pair of line-standing representatives is always a good idea.

We got our 30 tickets to share with the babysitters and headed back some 4 blocks toward the van just after 8:00. Here are Juan and Rebecca hiding behind a planter box while we were waiting to see whether KC and Emily would come find us. We thought we were hilarious, which is an indicator of just how tired we were.