Guinness World Record

By the way, we only saw Air Supply because we just happened to be downtown breaking a Guinness World Record.

I promise that just because I gained eternal fame and glory by breaking a Guinness World Record, I will still treat all of you as equals.

Saturday, at approximately 5:37 p.m. EST, the largest group of angklung players ever assembled joined together for five minutes to play "We Are the World."  We were given our instrument, taught our hand signal, and together we became one.

Here are our fellow GWR breakers.  Those shiny hats are what all the men were given, the women were given fancy scarves. (On top of breaking a record, given free accessories, getting to take home our angklungs...we were still given a free Air Supply concert!  Indonesia is the most generous country in the world!)

Here we are practicing "We Are the World."  What I love about this video is that Adrienne thought she was taking a picture.  That singing and smiling and swaying to the music that's captured in this video, that's all real folks, we didn't even know she was filming.

Honestly, "We Are the World" was cool, but what really gave me chills was the warm-up song, Home on the Range.  If it is possible for Home on  the Range to be achingly beautiful, I did not know it until that afternoon when the wooden chimes of the angklung rung up and down the hill of the Washington monument in a wave of soft melody.  Little Morgan, I so wish you'd been there to hear our song together played in such a sweet way.

I wasn't even trying to take this video - I just bumped my camera on!

Our conductor, Dr. Udjo, was the coolest, happiest man alive.  I don't think they could have found a better man for the job.  He built our confidences up with a few warm up songs (including Country Roads!) and then we were ready.

We weren't allowed to take pictures during the record song (everyone had to be holding their instrument and playing the song or we were all disqualified).  So I used what God gave me (my chin) to hold my camera up and film the song (I just had to document history). 

(what's with the sour puss girl at the end?  Does she hate unity and record breaking or something?)

And when we were done, you could not contain the crowd's excitement (except for that sour puss at the end of the video)!

We had done it.  We had battled the world record and together we conquered!

I just love it when a group comes together (I'm a lot like Hannibal Smith that way). It brings tears to my eyes.  And it makes me want to sing the Indonesian National Anthem.

So once again, please don't feel awkward around me just because I happen to be in the history books.  I may have a certificate to prove that I am awesome...

But it does have a typo.  Which means it could all be fake.  Hmm.

Welcome to DC, where everything is free!!!

Since Ben loves us more than anyone else in the family, he came out to visit us.  

He might have spent some time at a math conference while he was here, but the point is, he could have found a math conference anywhere, and he chose DC, because he loves us.  

And because it's where, apparently, everything is free.  Free rides to and from the airport, free dinners, free hotels, free math knowledge, free DC tours, free monuments, free museums, free entertainment....it's all FREE!!!

Ben's free weekend began with showing us his schedule and when he would have free time for us.

We dropped him off at his fancy, free hotel at 2 am and we witnessed this for the first time.

Which reminded us of this:

Later that weekend, Chitty Chitty Ben Ben  got the fully loaded free tour of our nation's capitol.

He saw the Washington.

He saw the capitol.

And we walked through a swamp so that he could see the White House.

This is what happened to Kelly in the swamp.  There were tears shed.  

Because Ben was more excited to see the White House than anything else (we never discovered exactly why), we decided to see it from both views.  We always go the extra mile as tour guides.

Woodruff for President 2012

We ate at a quaint Italian place at the Reagan Center for "free."  Don't worry, Kim, it was vegan.

One of the many great things about Ben, is that he is blissfully obedient.  If you say "Hey Ben, can you go lean against that wall with your arms folded for a photo shoot?" he does it immediately without question.

When it got dark, we visited my ALL-TIME favorite place on the mall - the World War II Monument.

You walk along granite pillars that represent all the states and territories that dedicated themselves to the cause of winning the war.  There is a laurel wreath hanging on each pillar, and as you walk up the ramp you find yourself crowned with each state - like you were part of the war, the service, the victory.

We each took a picture by the state we are most in love with.

This is what we got when we asked a non-English speaking tourist to take our picture.

This is what we get when we ask an English-speaking tourist to take our picture.

This is Ben with his "Everything is Free!" face.

"Hey Ben, will you dance between the pillars of the Lincoln Monument so that we can video your shadow dance?"

Korean Monument.  You can barely tell which one is the statue and which one is Ben.

Ben next to his favorite thing about DC, the crosswalks that give you 64 second countdowns to cross a street that takes 3 seconds.

Ben had mentioned several times how cool it would be to touch the Washington Monument.  So he did.  Because he's cool.

And he's brave.  Look at all those bugs!

DC rebels jumping off the path.

DC rebels hopping fences.

This boy was a tired little math baby after a full night of free DC tours.

The next day, we took Ben to our most favorite place in the DC area: the Amish market.

Ben loved the Lincoln statue pose, it was hard to get him to do any other pose for pictures.

We brought our Amish market goods home to eat so that Ben could see where we lived.  We feasted on stuffed pretzels, a cream cheese pumpkin roll, and orange lemonade.  Don't worry, Kim, it was all vegan.

Then we had a dance party.

Then we sang our way to the airport where Ben tried to squeeze all his DC memories into his luggage.

Then we said good-bye and cried a little.

And our little water boy flew back to the Burg.

I hope there's one thing we've all learned from this post: you too can have a wonderful, free time in DC.  Please come visit.  And please hurry. 

And if that's not convincing enough, you can also have your own trailer, with an accompanying movie (opening day: June 26th)