The Easter Egg Roll |
Now that I've gotten that out of the way....
The ever-popular Elmo |
Now, we weren't permitted to cover the event - no media. They didn't even want us tweeting from the event. I think the idea was to make it a day about kids, not about getting press coverage. And that's totally cool. It was a day about kids, 35,000 of them, not stampeding journalists looking for the best shot or interview.
Fortunately we were broken down into group and each group got tickets for a different two hour time slot throughout the day. I was given permission to post a few of my photos, so long as I didn't really "cover" the event, so you're only getting four photos that I actually took for myself and my friend, and one of those photos is of a plant. And I'm not going to walk you through the day and the event, which I would have liked to.
Wisteria going up the steps to the Oval Office patio. |
The only thing they could do better is to indicate on the White House Web site exactly what you can bring to the event.
They tell you that you can't bring open food or water, or knapsacks (my friend wasn't sure if she could bring diapers, and where to put them if she couldn't bring a bag). We weren't sure what any of it meant - can we we not bring any water or food at all? Can my friend bring Cheerios for the kid to snack on? How about his milk? We were going to be there at lunch time How is a one year old going to make it through five to six hours, from the time we left home to the time we got back home, without food and water? Would they have food and water there? No one could tell us. Could we bring the baby stroller? No idea, and when we called, again no one knew. There was ample bottled water, which was great and well done (though they should tell people there will be beverages), but only a piece of fruit per child, none for the adults. I started to have a low blood sugar attack at around 2pm (which figures, since I hadn't eaten since 10am, and didn't bring my usual snacks to make it through without an attack since I was told not to bring food) and had to literally beg for one of the kids' apples, which was kind of embarrassing. The woman doling them out begrudgingly gave me one.
The view from the Easter Egg dyeing table. (click image for larger version) |