Last month, First Lady Michelle Obama made a special announcement on TODAY: She planned to hit the road for a garden-themed tour to bring one of her very first initiatives around full circle — the White House Kitchen Garden.
Since then, she's been busy making good on that pledge, visiting schools, homes and community gardens across the country. Now she's taking a familiar face along with her.
TODAY's Al Roker joined the first lady at the White House Thursday, and then he hitched a ride as she visited two schools — Burke County Middle School in Waynesboro, Georgia, and Philip’s Academy Charter School in Newark, New Jersey — for planting events.
He even had a chance to sit down with her afterwards for a one-on-one conversation about her time in the White House and what comes next.
With a nod to her healthy-living challenge, #GimmeFive, he asked for five words that summed up the last seven years at the White House.
"For me: fun, challenging, creative, dynamic — and, at times, delicious," she said.
Must be that garden!
But one word she wouldn't use is "easy" — after all, the first family is always in the spotlight.
"Adjusting to all this attention and trying to make sure that I raise girls that are sane in the limelight that is brighter than one could ever imagine — yeah, absolutely, there were challenges," she explained. But there were good times, too.
"By far, the fun that I have in this job far outweighs any challenges that you can imagine," she assured.
With her time at the White House coming to an end next year, she was asked to look ahead and complete the sentence "On Saturday, January 21st, 2017, the day after Inauguration Day, I will be..."
"Hopefully somewhere warm," she said with a laugh. "I think that's the safest thing I can say. Somewhere really, really warm."
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