It was February 24, 2007. Dad had to work that Saturday so Mom and Jes came into town that morning as well. While Dad worked, Mom and Jes latched-up with JW and Mike. After Starbucks, while Dad was at a meeting, the gang went to the International Spy Museum which, even though John and Mike were two intel weenies, neither had been to before. It was the second time for Mom.
Later that afternoon, after Dad got out of the meeting, we all met outside the National Archives and, like so many other Leonard excursions, we winged it. One of the objectives for that night was to go to the Belgian restaurant on 11th Street by the Marine Barracks. Somehow, it did not seem to work out with reservations, so instead we went to the Native American Museum on the Mall -- not the best choice in retrospect. After that we wanted to go see the German thriller/drama The Lives of Others (Best Foreign Language Film, 2006) at the E Street Cinema,
but the show we wanted to see was sold out. So we punted again and went to Ella's for an early dinner of pizza cooked in a wood fired oven. The food, the drinks, and especially the conversation were great -- it having been Lord knows when since just the five of us had the opportunity to just sit
around and enjoy each other's company. We then had some more time to kill while waiting for the next show time so we all went to the ESPN Zone downtown where everyone shot some hoops. It seems Jes was able to get the best of just about everybody that night. We then went to the late show of the movie which brought back found memories of earlier road trips to East Berlin since the movie took place in that divided city about the same time we lived in Europe. Little did we know that we would loose John just 6 weeks later but we are so thankful that we all took advantage of the time we had. We are also thankful for Alex and Gina sharing John and Mike with us that evening so that it could just be Mom, Dad and the kids one more time!
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