Math festival!

The Smithsonian put on a math festival this past weekend on the Mall. Most of the exhibits were outside and aimed at kids in grade school and middle school. There were demonstrations, games, crafts, cool exhibits (I now know what the Fibonacci sequence is -- very cool!) and a bunch of things for us to do with Rachel, so we put off our Day of Cleaning to this weekend, hopped on the Metro after a good breakfast (and securing the last legal parking space at the East Falls Church Metro station) and off we went.

The festival, the first ever, was a hive of activity and the weather was unbelievably perfect -- soft, springlike, perfect for hanging out outside. We toured a couple of exhibits, grabbed lunch in the cafe and then headed to a demonstration of a mathematician who was performing tricks that demonstrated math logic. He called up various members of the audience to try to outsmart him; some did, some didn't. One of the people he called on was Rachel, who proceeded to beat him at a game of dots and boxes (with audience encouragement, but she also refused her chance to go first, leading him to say, "I guess you're smarter than I thought you'd be!") and she won A $10 BILL!!! You can imagine her excitement. She said she'd save some of it and put some of it in our tzedakah box at home. I hugged her hard and told her I was proud of her. (Unfortunately I missed the whole thing because I was in the bathroom, having drunk a lot of water that day. Sigh.)

Anyhow, we stayed a few hours and then caught the Metro back in time to have a quick dinner at the Stray Cat, a restaurant in Westover Town Center near our house, and then we raced to the synagogue to attend a Havdalah ceremony, story and milk and cookies for all the first-graders in Hebrew school. Rachel got to make a spice box and a braided candle, and we let her take some cookies to Ivy, with whom she was having a sleepover that night. Then we raced to Tobey's, our local ice cream place, got some ice cream and then headed to Ivy's. Drew and I proceeded to take advantage of our unexpected date night (the sleepover was confirmed only that morning) and saw "Woman in Gold" and loved it.

The next morning Drew picked Rachel up from Ivy's and took her to Hebrew School chorus practice (school was canceled but chorus practice was not, which annoyed me immensely because it really put a crimp in our weekend) while I headed to Uncle Dan's for a visit. I brought him some scones from our cool new bakery, Village Sweets, which opened up in the town center near the Italian Store, an excellent Italian sandwich/dinner/products from Italy place that supposedly will be open for business in the next few weeks.

Dan and I had a nice visit; Drew and Rachel joined us about an hour into it, and then I headed to Chevy Chase, Md., to greet incoming Northwestern students at a reception sponsored by the Northwestern Alumni Association. Then I headed to work just in time to start my shift.

Whew! I'm tired just writing this; it was a busy weekend.