A 9-year-old girl traveled from Atlanta with her grandparents to celebrate her birthday with a White House tour, but that didn’t happen because of the federal government shutdown.
The big treat for Faith Lawhead’s 9th birthday was supposed to be that tour.
“I literally spent a couple of months getting our pass set up for touring the White House, and last night at 11:30 we got an email saying that the tour was canceled,” said her grandmother, Rhonda Lawhead.
But virtually everything else was open on the National Mall Saturday.
“We got to do a lot of other fun things, instead,” Faith said.
The Smithsonian museums, research centers and National Zoo will stay open through Monday.
"The Smithsonian can use prior year funds still available to us to do so,” the Smithsonian tweeted Saturday. “We will update our status beyond Monday as soon as we know."
