two californians arrived in washington, d.c. after getting up at 4:15 in the morning, riding on 2 airplanes, and almost losing our car seat at the airport, just in time for the biggest earthquake to hit DC in over 100 years!
our dear friend, laura, picked joaquin and me up at Dulles International airport with her precious 15 month old daughter, Siena. Siena and Joaquin haven't seen each other in quite some time, but Joaquin was sharing his new airplane toy with her in an instant and making eyes at her in the back seat.
joaquin also started calling Laura "Tia," which is what he calls his aunties on Kiko's side because "Tia" is aunt in Spanish. Laura is a dark haired beauty like his west coast tias, `but I am not sure if he was confusing her for his Tia Alana or Tia Livvie, or if he just felt like calling her Tia. Either way, Tia Laura it was and I think she was touched.
Laura drove us to her house, which is in a charming part of D.C. called "Colonial Village." The neighborhood is comprised of period 1930s homes, all with similar colonial architecture, and it's bordered by Rock Creek Park. I immediately fell in love with the neighborhood, and of course, Laura's hospitality made it hard not to feel relieved to be in someone's home after being in hotels and a seedy apartments for 3 weeks.
While we were feeding the kids lunch, all of a sudden the house started shaking and dishes rattled. (Now, Laura is also from California, and between the two of us California girls, you'd think we'd know what to do in an EARTHQUAKE! But we're in DC....there are no earthquakes in D.C.! Or so we both thought....)
We grabbed the kids from their chairs, then stood under one arched doorway then another, then she's like "let's go outside," which seemed like a great idea to me because this house was old...and likely has not been through many earthquakes like California structures.
As we scurried outside, her neighbors were all coming outside also, calling from their front porches, "Oh my god! Oh my god! Is this/was that an earthquake?"
Of course, then Joaquin, being the parrot-child that he is, starts saying "Oh my God! Oh my God!"
I tell him, "we're okay, we're okay," and then Siena starts crying, and Joaquin repeats "we're okay, we're okay." It was very sweet.
So we decide to move our lunch outside and have a picnic on her front lawn, just so we can be ready in case there's an aftershock. I am still not sure if going outside was our best move, but it made us feel a lot safer.
I am glad I arrived when I did, because apparently, traveling in and out of DC for the rest of the day was not easy. Kiko and the rest of his JAG crew got stuck in Atlanta as their plane was delayed, and public transportation and traffic in the greater DC area was a mess well until the evening.
I guess being from California, I felt like a somewhat seasoned earthquake veteran, even though it still got my heart racing and my blood pumping...
After the earthquake, we took a nice long walk through Laura's neighborhood. I enjoyed the architecture and also was amazed at how there is a woodsy park in the middle of Washington, D.C. Our capital city is pretty amazing! It was also wonderful to reintroduce Joaquin into being outside, since the weather in Montgomery has kept us more or less cooped indoors and near the A/C unit.
Side note - I am not the best on airplanes, but if there is anything to get me over my fear of flying, it was the idea of spending 5 days alone at our place in Montgomery, while Kiko traveled to DC with his JAG classmates...I've never been so happy to get on a plane and go somewhere!
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