Christmastime in the City

Merry Christmas! (Cassius now hates being in a photo.
Get used to that motif.)

Last Saturday, the boys and I had a full day planned. First, we were going to go to City Center to do the ice maze. The information I saw ahead of time made it seem pretttttty awesome!

This looks pretty lovely, no?

This sounds pretty lovely, no?

I thought we'd spend a half an hour or so working our way through a pretty cool experience. Instead, the maze was about 20 by 30, under a tent, and took all of 8 minutes.

That's the somewhat underwhelming ice wall behind us.

One couldn't even get lost in it because there were only 2 dead ends. Luckily, there was no line at all and we just walked in (We is Maceo, Cassius, my dad, and me).

He Who Will Not Be Photographed zips right through the maze.

So, then we were downtown with about 40 more minutes on the parking meter and nothing to do! We walked around City Center, window shopping at the fancy stores

I'm a firm believer that Maceo should be a model.

until we arrived at.........Tesla! Ooooo, the boys were excited! We wandered in and Dad and the boys instantly got in a vehicle to try out moving the seats, opening and closing the power doors, and just nosing about.

"Don't bother me, Daddy, I'm working on my Tesla."

Maceo intrudes during the sales spiel to Grandpa.

It was a good time, and to help get them involved and to practice things like writing their names and memorizing their addresses and my phone number, I had them fill out forms for a Tesla raffle. Cassius especially took this quite seriously.

Well, guess who won the raffle. 

Here's the text I received:

Hi Cassius! This is Julian From Tesla DC City Center! I wanted to let you know that you won our raffle for an overnight with a Tesla! You can reach back to me here or at 202-XXX-XXXX!

They are going to pee their pants. But don't tell them because I have the text printed out and I'm putting it in a Christmas card as a present!

We'll be the proud possessors of a Tesla from 5:30 pm to 9 the next morning! I can't wait to see how excited they are. 

The rest of that fateful Saturday, we were going to spend at the "theatah" (that's the "theater" for you hoi polloi). I had wrangled free tickets to go see "The Snow Queen" at a cool theater across the river in Crystal City. Through the website, I had purchased three seats right in the middle of the theater for, once I clicked through to my cart, the nice round number of $0! "Well!" I thought. "Perhaps it's a free matinée or it's the understudies or something. Free! Nice!" I got a follow up email from the theater telling me to be on time or I might not be seated, that the performance lasted 70 minutes, and that there would be fun activities before the show in the lobby so get there early for snacks, crafts, and story time! "Great," I thought.

I think you know something bad was going to happen.

Well, it turns out that I had "bought" the free tickets to story time and crafts, and the show actually costs $19.50 a ticket, but the ticket service had sent out the typical stock email they sent to all purchasers regardless of if I had bought the free activities tickets or the play tickets and so we were out of luck. And we were sad.

Oreos helped dull the pain of no tickets to "The Snow Queen."

So, we headed home. During the boys' quiet time, I sent an admonishing but thoroughly polite email to the theater, and within thirty minutes, they responded with an apology and three complimentary tickets! So, we're heading back out there next Saturday to see the show!

The weekend had started out so promisingly, but then it had faltered. Now, it's been one of the most awesome weekends in recent memories and set the stage for some amazing memories to come! Keep your eyes on this website for Tesla pictures, small boys' reviews of a classic play, and anything else we can think to do over the holidays!