And it goes, "Boom!"

In the dark hours of the morning, I groped around for sweats and a t-shirt.  I dressed as silently as possible hoping to give the wee-people a bit more sleep before I rousted them out of bed.  I ran a hairbrush through my hair and snapped it back into a low ponytail.  Brush teeth.  Splash cold water.  Blink.  I finally felt awake.  I woke Kate up first and then Reagan slid out of bed.  Really, she did.  She has slide attached to her bunk, so she slid out of bed.  They both eagerly grabbed blankets, shoes and socks and then huddled near the front door as I got Georgianna out of bed.

Georgi does not like to wake up.  Her usual mode of operation is to fling one arm over so that she rolls on to her tummy, eyes still closed.  Then she fling the other until she has completely rolled out of bed, but managed to not have to wake up.  She ends up lying half on and half off the bed, arms stretched out.  She'll stay that way, too, until you pick her up and carry her to wherever her waiting attire is.

As we opened the front door and loaded into the car, Jonathan stumbled to the front door.  "Where are you going?" he asked in obvious confusion.  "Um it's Thursday," I responded.  He nodded and said, "Oh, yeah," as if I had just clearly explained the matter.  30 seconds later he was hopping into the car with one shoe still in his hand.  The gray of dawn still hadn't touched the sky, but we were up and ready to go.

Those of you who have visited know that Starbucks is just a short hop from our house.  I grabbed a spot and backed the car into it.  Then we all clambered out and made our sleepy way into the store.  A cappuccino, greek yogurt, lemon pound cake, chocolate cake and bacon/gouda sandwich later and we strolled out to the sidewalk running along Texas Ave.  We faced north and waited.  Dawn arrived and we still waited.  More people kept pulling into the parking lot and joined us on the sidewalk.  The white light of morning finally revealed to our eyes the thing we had been searching for -- a gutted out tower about a mile away.

We could have gotten closer, but I didn't want to risk the children.

Firefighters joined us.  Policemen stood in watchful silence on the other side of the street.  A two-way radio crackled, "Two minutes."  People got out their cameras and cell phones.  An eerie silence fell across the thousands of people lining the street.  It was broken by another crackle, "Ten seconds."

And then, a puff of gray smoke shot out of the side of the tower and the magnificent structure began to crumble.  A sound like thunder reverberated across the city as the structure collapsed in on itself and toppled like a jenga tower.  Then we all clambered back into the car and went home.