WASHINGTON–This past Valentine’s Day weekend marks one year since the entire Obama family visited their home on Greenwood in Chicago.
The last time the First Family was home was Valentine’s Day weekend, 2009. President Obama stopped by briefly after a speech last year. This 2010 weekend, First Lady Michelle Obama took Malia and Sasha to Camp David on Friday; Saturday they made a daytrip from Camp David to Pennsylvania to ski; on Sunday they were at Camp David and returned to Washington later in the day.
I asked First Lady Michelle Obama why trips home never materialized during a January interview.
Then President-elect Obama said in December, 2008 that he expected to get back home “as often as possible, My expectation would be that, depending on what my schedule looks like, you know, we’re going to try to get back here at least once every six weeks or couple of months.”
Mrs. Obama explained in January, “Kids, because on Saturday there is ballet and Sasha did basketball last fall and there were games on Saturday, and then when basketball season was over, soccer season started for Malia, games were on Saturday, and then birthday parties and sleep overs and people visiting you. So, to find a weekend; ‘where, you know, you go to the kids and go, ‘you want to go to Chicago,” she said, just never happened.
“…And before you know it its winter and ‘we’re not going now,” she said. “January’s out..”
She explained more about not making it to Chicago. “Its really life and the fact that the kids have built a life here and that’s good and right now I want to encourage that life and not keep pulling them out. So its less our schedules than them. Who’s got kids? They dictate the weekend.”’