Almost Forgot...

After I posted the last entry "Friends & Family on the East Coast", I realized I had forgotten to share a cute anecdote that happened with our nephew, Miller. 

Our first night in DC was spent at Sam's youngest brother Pete's apartment, which is just outside of the District, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. 

View from 15th floor apartment in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase.

The evening we arrived, Pete had Nepalese food delivered, and we shared a delicious dinner with Sam's sister Mary, her daughter Emily and son-in-law Thom, two of Pete's sons Eli and Miller, and Pete's lovely bride, Dwan. (I must interject here that Dwan is an amazing woman, with the singing voice of an angel, and what Sam thinks might be the best job in the world. She works for the Smithsonian Institute as the Curator of Music History for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. She travels all over the country meeting with musicians or their families, trying to acquire musical memorabilia for the museum. Needless to say, she has met some very interesting people and has many stories to tell.)


Well, back to my short story... Pete and Dwan were married this past June, but because they each still have teenagers in different, and distant, school districts, they have not yet combined their households. Also, as you can imagine, her job keeps her pretty busy and sometimes out of town, so getting to spend the night together isn't as often as they would like. So, Pete asked if we minded "teen-sitting" Miller that night, which included making sure he got to school the next morning. (Pete's oldest son Eli, lives on his own now.) Of course, we were happy to do them this favor, and the next morning, we drove Miller to school -- the Sidwell Friends School. The same school that the President's daughters attend. In fact, Malia is in Miller's class!

Miller (who is an eighth grader) attends the middle school, which is on the other side of  campus from where this photo was taken. The middle school looks more like a regular school entrance, and several cars were dropping kids off for the school day. Since Miller is almost six feet tall, and we had a clothing rack hanging in the back seat of our car, I sat in the back and he sat up front. When we arrived at Sidwell, Miller got out of the car, as did I, so that I could move into the front seat, and Miller, not realizing what I was doing, gave me a kind of panicked (typical) teenager look, and said, "Oh, no, you don't have to come in with me!" I laughed and told him not to worry, I wouldn't do that to him, and he looked quite relieved! Pretty cute.