National Harbor Tree Lighting

The day after Thanksgiving we went to National Harbor where the had a tree lighting ceremony and then did fireworks over the water.  It was AMAZING.  Probably one of the best firework shows that I have ever seen. The fireworks were time perfectly to Trans Siberian Orchestra, really cool!

The peep store, yes there is a store dedicated to just marshmallow peeps, was giving away these goofy hats so of course we had to get one! 

Les Miserables

I love the musical Les Mis! It is so fantastic, and beautiful.  I had the opportunity to go and see it at the Kennedy Center, and I loved every minute of it!  The Kennedy Center is an extremely pretty building.

This is the front hallway when you walk in the building and this picture just can not do it justice!

 

I was a little disappointed in the fact that they took the liberty of adding some suggestive things that really did NOT need to be there! 

Other than that it was wonderful and if I could have afforded to I would have gone every night! 

A Familiar Face

I have loved my time out here but I miss home.  I miss seeing long streches of nothing but fields, I miss the mountains,  I miss the people and familiar faces.  When I heard that a friend from home was coming I was so excited and I was lucky enough to get to tag along with Connie Gunnel and her brother on their vacation.  The came because Connie had just finished her masters degree and Daniel was leaving for his mission in 2 weeks so they came for a little get away, and I crashed it!  It was so good to see someone that I know, and I loved being able to catch up with Connie.

I was a loser and didn't take pictures, except like 2.

That is the Jefferson memorial in the Background.  I have still never actually been there, but I have heard that it's awesome.  I have didn't go over with Connie and Daniel because I had some pretty massive blisters on my feet.  I don't know why but I get blisters ALL the time.  No matter what shoes I wear!  It is really unfortunate.  

This is the new MLK Jr.  memorial.  It is really awesome.  It was supposed to open the weekend of the hurricane, but they had to cancel it.

We also went to Mt. Vernon and my camera battery was dead!  Mt. Vernon is probably my favorite thing that I have been to since I have been here.  We are going to try and go again this week to see it all decorated for Christmas.  I will try and take pictures.

 

Boyce Avenue

So a year or so ago I accidentaly ran onto a Boyce Avenue you tube video and I was instantly sold!  I love them!  They do covers and original songs, all of which are good!  In October I got to go see them live!  Was it AWESOME?  Why yes, yes it was!  I drug a few friends along with me,  they had never heard of them before but they really liked them.  At least that is what I was told.  We had a blast, there is nothing like having a drunk crazy spill his beer on you!  Haha it really was a fun concert though,  I am glad we went. 

This is Alexis and Tara.  I love these girls!!!!!

Gettysburg

In October my ward had our ward retreat in Maryland.  Our camp was really near Camp David.  I only know this because while we were there Camp David had a "special visitor" and helicopters kept flying over really low, and the roads around our camp ground were all closed.  It was a one way in and one way out kind of thing.  It was a really fun camp out though, and really fun to have Sacrament Meeting in the woods.

Gettysburg was only like 30 minutes farther from where we were so we decided since we were that far we might as well keep going.  We were only there for a few hours and didn't even scratch the surface of all that there was to see.  It is a really beautiful and peaceful place.  I would really love to go back sometime.

My camera had been having issues so all of the pictures were taken on my phone, so they are not the best quality.

I didn't get to take very many pictures because my phone died. These pictures are from the national cemetery.

What's Shakin?

On August 24th EVERYTHING was shaking!

Can I just say that people here do not know how to handle a natural disaster and in the end of August they had  a few opportunities to practice.  I would give them a solid C- for effort.  I can't say that I blame them for the mass chaos created by the earthquake and hurricane in the same week.  After 9/11 everyone's first thought was attack.  Having had the practice of earthquake drills in school I knew what was going on.  However, I was not in a high rise building.  I was at home sitting in my living room and I had just put Isaac down for a nap, and might I add that he was out!  He did not even flinch.  I wouldn't have even moved out of the rocking chair but the bookshelf next to it already has some stability issues and I didn't trust that it wouldn't fall on us.  We were safe with no damage to our house.

There was more damage right in DC.  A few of the spires fell off of the National Cathedral and the Washington Monument is still closed due to this crack

  Luckily it was just minor damage.

Then that weekend we were lucky enough to meet Hurricane Irene.  She was a beauty.  I won't lie, we didn't let the hurricane slow us down.  It was a perfect day for a little bit of shopping because everyone else was to busy buying water and batteries for the power outages that had been predicted.  Like I said, they don't know how to do natural disasters here, not prepared for them at all! 

It really wasn't as eventful as they made it seem like it was going to be, at least in my area.  A lot of rain, but it rained even harder the next weekend, lots of wind, and our power was out for like 2 hours.  Not 2 days like they told us it would be.  It was an eventful week.  I can now say I have lived through an earthquake and hurricane.  Who would have thought that they would be in the same week! :) 

  

Jumping Back on the Band Wagon.

So it has been awhile since I have posted anything on here, but I have been busy...PLAYING!  It has been such a long time since my last post because about a month ago the hard drive on my computer crashed and I lost EVERYTHING!!! I was so bummed and felt overwhelmed that having to play catch up didn't sound like such a great task, and I have been busy doing all the fun things that I should blog about, so that means that no blogging was accomplished!

Since I am the queen of all things procrastination, I am so far behind.. Hopefully I will get everything all caught up this weekend  Next up on the blog docket:

• Earthquake and Hurricane News
• Trip to Gettysburg 
• Boyce Avenue Concert
• Visit with a friend from home
• Mount Vernon
• Les Miserables 

Now don't you have something to look forward to!!! 

NYC!

Last week was jam packed with loads of fun!  I have been busy so I am just now getting around to posting about it!  Last Friday I went into DC again, I rode the Metro by myself (which was an experience!) I went and met my friend Bri that has been here doing an internship and she was leaving Saturday! I am glad that I got to see her before she left!

We went to the Washington Monument.  It was dusk and it looked so awesome. I have heard from quite a few people that everything is so much cooler at night! I believe it!

After that we walked to the Lincoln Memorial.  I had only ever seen pictures and movies.  It was so much better in real life! 

The Korean Memorial was our last stop for the evening.  I didn't know much about the Korean Memorial before I went there, but I learned so much just from being there.  I didn't take any pictures because my camera is terrible in the dark and that memorial had hardly no lighting because they want it to be as real as possible.  The statues are 6ft.  They are pretty close to regular size because the person that designed it wanted you to become a part of the memorial.  It was really cool.  

I can't wait to go back to this memorial and spend some time here during the day and get to see all of the names and the faces that are carved on the wall behind.  

That was pretty much the end of the night, we just walked back to the metro.  Funny Story:  I rode the train with Bri and her friends until their stop and then I had to get off to switch because my stop is the very last one.  Well as I am getting off the train this creepy OLD man comes up to me and starts rubbing my shoulder (He was pretty much petting me) and said " Sweetie, that is the prettiest blouse that I have seen in such a long time.  It is just so pretty..." As he is gushing over my t-shirt, I am being thoroughly creeped out. and feeling pretty violated by this guy!  I just thought "Excuse me strange old man you are touching me and I don't care for it!" while really just saying thank you.  What do you do in that situation?  Really? I think I may need to invest in some mace or  something! Weird!!! I am really glad that I wasn't alone at that point but I also had to get on the next train, ride it to the last station, and walk through the parking garage ALONE.  I was pretty freaked out by the time that I made it back to my car!  

On Saturday morning I got up super early and hopped on a charter bus and headed to NYC to meet Amanda who was in Connecticut visiting her mother in law.  It was SO good to see her!  They picked me up at Penn Station and then we went and spent the afternoon at Time Square. 

  This is at M&M world.  They had 2 of these huge walls of M&M dispensers.

 We put these glasses on Spencer at M&M world.  He was not pleased and didn't think that we were as we thought we were.  He was so good all day! 

This is the huge carousel inside of the Toys R Us 

 At the Toys R Us  we got matching tattoos for the day.  You really can't see them at all but it was of Tinker Bell. There was a guy there demonstrating them so of course we had to try them!

They drop the ball from right here, you can see it at the very top.

Here is a better picture of the ball. Its pretty cool, but I could not even imagine be at Time Square on New Years Eve! 

We took this picture as we were heading back to the car.  After we took this picture that camera went MIA for 3 days.  I am so glad that Amanda finally found it because we didn't take any pictures with my camera because it was faster to just use one, and we used hers.  I wouldn't have had any pictures to show! 

 We did a drive by "shooting" of the NYC Temple.  It really is pretty awesome, it just kind of sneaks up on you.  Its not like everywhere else, that you can see it for a long ways a way.  I couldn't get a great picture because I was in the car so this was the best I could do.

We spent the rest of the weekend in CT because it rained :( Then I headed back to DC on Monday.  It was such a fun and busy weekend.  I would really like to go back to NY soon and see more! It was so amazing but I am definitely not a city girl! It was so busy and there are so many people and it smells really bad.  I don't think that I would like to live there, but its fun to visit! 

First Trip to DC!!!

Today was a super fun day! I went to DC for the first time today.  The lady that I work for rents out a room in the basement.  Bianca, the girl that is renting it is an intern at the Smithsonian, and she is leaving on Thursday.  Today she offered to take me into DC and show me around a little, and teach me how to use the Metro and bus system.  What an adventure! 


First we went to the Library of Congress.  Tours and listening to people talk for a long time is not really my thing, this was really interesting! There was so much to see, and the building is so beautiful! 

This is right outside of the building.

This is the staircase.  The docent said that they carved these there because they wanted it to show that the library is for everyone, children included. I was only to get these two, but they go up and down the whole staircase, and each one is different.

All of the above pictures are in the Library of Congress. The ceilings are AMAZING!  There is so much beautiful art right on the ceiling.  A lot of it is mosaic.  I can not even imagine how long it would take to do that.  All of the floors are marble, and there are a lot of carvings.  It was definatly a lot better than I was expecting it to be! 

After the Library we went and got lunch.  We went to a place called We The Pizza.  It was a fun little shop and this was the BIGGEST slice of pizza I have ever seen, and it came with two! It was really yummy! 

After we went there, we went and took a tour of the Capitol Building.  There is a girl in my ward that is and intern for her Senator and she took us on our own private tour so we didn't have to go around with the big huge crowd.  It was great and we got to see a few places that the big tours don't.

This picture was actually taken from inside the Library, but it was the best one I got of the Capitol today, because we met our tour guide Natalie in another building and then took all of the underground tunnels in and out, so I was in it, but never up close to it outside. 

Everything in the Capitol Building is beautiful as well. This is just one of the halls, but all of them are painted like this.  It is incredible. 

This is the top of the dome, but pictures just can't do it justice! 

In the Capitol there are two statues from every state, and Utah's is of course Brigham Young.

After we the Capitol, we headed to the Postal museum.  It was pretty cool. No tours you just wander around and read stuff.  

When we were done there, we hopped on a bus and headed to Georgetown.  It is a cute little place, with lots of little shops but everything seemed super expensive! 

We went to Georgetown Cupcakes (aka DC cupcakes) as seen on TLC.  It is a fun little shop. 

This was the line to get in, and rumor has it that it is actually really short.  It usually is a 40-50 minute wait.  We only had to wait for about 15 minutes.

As it turns there are two other cupcake shops in about a 6 blocks radius, so we checked them out as well too! This one was called Baked and Wired. 

Then we went to Sprinkles, and got their free cupcake, for knowing the word of the day.  It was a carrotcake cupcake that was very sweet. As of yet, it is the only one that I have actually even tried, but I have a lot of taste testing to do! Haha, I'll be spending extra time at the gym this week, that's for sure! 

It was a fun day with LOTS of walking!  Hopefully now I will be able to get around on my own a little bit and start exploring a little more!  

I have had a few ups and downs since I have been here, but all in all, it has been good, and I am really enjoying it! I love my job, and I think that I will Learn a lot! I miss everyone at home, but I know that this will be a great experience for me! I'll let you know about my next adventure!