Staycation, Day 2

On day two of our Staycation we went to vote. Paul wanted to see how the actual voting happened, and, much to my surprise, he was allowed to come with me into the voting booth. I knew who I wanted to vote for except for our school board representative. There were two names listed, both women who I did not know, and Paul told me to vote for the second one, since "the second is always the best." When I pressed him for information on how he knew this, he told me that his friend Bryan had told him. Well, okay, that was about as good as any other reason I had for choosing name one over name two, so I voted for name two. For our efforts Paul and I and Ben all got "I voted" stickers. We also got a gazillion phone calls all day, mostly by robots, about voting. Boy, am I glad the election is over so all these phone calls will stop!

After voting we picked up Paul's friend, Even, and headed down to the National Zoo. We got there just about lunch time and all the parking lots were full. No matter. We were hungry anyway, and headed out to Connecticut Avenue where we found a great parking place in front of Ben's favorite restaurant, Lavandou. The boys were quite suspicious about going to a French restaurant, but we had the money, so we got to choose where to eat. (And the last time, we'd gone to the nearby diner where the boys got milkshakes and french fries, so it was our turn.) The nice hostess won them over by instantly offering them a child's menu and being so welcoming, even to the point of bringing catsup without a negative comment. Ben and I enjoyed our lunch very much, and the boys dealt with being in this "slow food" environment in a very grown-up manner, which we appreciated.



Then to the zoo. It was a glorious fall day, sunny and just cold enough to be brisk. We enjoyed the aviary....



..and the elephants.



And then back home to finish up Paul's Language Arts project, which was to make a board game based on a mystery he had read. The teacher's goal was for the kids to learn how to write directions. My goal was not to go crazy getting Paul to finish the project, so I had started days ago, having him devise the game, making the board, write directions, and make the box. It was a great amount of work, and I was so glad that I had hounded urged him to get an early start on it, so the final details were all completed by bedtime.
,