Marathon Saturday

What a weekend...as always. Friday night we explored the Reston Town Center, It's about 10 minutes from where we live. It is high rise apartments with tons of restaurants, stores, and offices below them. Pretty fun, there's lots of fountains, people watching, and free concerts!

We got to spend saturday with some friends from Logan, Chris and Deidra Hartwell. They are in our ward at home, but both have lived here in the DC area so they know what they're doing! They invited us to the Eastern Market for breakfast (yummy famous "blue-bucks" and incredible french toast!). Eastern market is kind of a street festival thing with booths of lots of random stuff and awesome produce, farmer's market style. After the roaming the market for awhile, we made our way to the National Arboreatum (446 acres of trees and land! Very nice to be out of the city). This is one of the few places around here the Hartwell's had never been to, so it was a lot of fun to adventure together. By far, the very best part of the Arboreatum is the Koi pond.

This is the corner of the pond where the fish food that you can buy and feed them is, so I think they are trained to just all be right here! It was so crazy.
You could reach down and put your finger in their mouths if you wanted, because they were all just hoping someone would drop some food into their mouths. Of course, we spent a good majority of our time here, using up all of the quarters we had. These columns were originally part of the capitol, but got moved to the arboreatum. Kind of random, but nonetheless kind of cool.

From the Arboreatum, we made our way to the National Cathedral. This building was spectacular, overwhelmingly huge! It made you feel like you were in Europe.

Did you know there is a "gargoyle" (for lack of the right word) that is Darth Vader? Yep, true story. Thanks to Deidra for the cool trivia; she was able to attend the Cathedral's 100th birthday celebration last year.
Here is walking in the front doors looking down the nave (this picture actually makes it look a lot brighter than it really is in there, it's a very dark place). Many past president's funerals have been held here. There are tombs inside all over the place, a gift shop downstairs, and the Bishop's Gardens outside with more gift shops. The stained glass was my favorite part, don't worry, we didn't do any kneeling. ;)

After the Cathedral, the Hartwell's were ever so kind to invite us to their place in Alexandria for a totally awesome dinner. We all kept joking that it was a never ending day, and that we were all so sick of each other by now, but I really enjoyed myself and had a blast getting to know Chris and Deidra a little more. I am really looking forward to our next marathon adventure! That is, if they aren't sick of us yet...

After dinner, they took us down to Old Town Alexandria. It was really cool! Old Town is a historic place, there's even cobblestone roads! They've kept it very unique, you can even have someone dressed up like George Washington days give you a tour of the place.

Old Town looking over the Potomac River, a really beautiful sight.

Well of course we had to stop for a treat, and I couldn't pass up this place! This is for you, Pop!! We thought about you the whole time we enjoyed our really yummy ice cream!

We met the guy that owns our house yesterday. He is here helping out at the Redskins football camp, and oh don't worry, he decided to stay here in the house while he's here! Because who can afford a hotel room for a few nights when you're retired NFL!!! Oh man, this whole situation just keeps getting weirder and weirder. But I guesss we should have expected this was all too good to be true. It's just really awkward for everyone involved, because really, this is HIS house, but right now, it's our house too! He's really nice, and you can tell he's trying to stay out of the way, but it's still way weird. Whatever, enough of our woes. Here's a video clip of those crazy fish at the koi pond while we were feeding them. Listen for the sound they make!!! Enjoy it over and over again.

Taking it easy...

This weekend we just stuck pretty close to home and "took it easy". Friday night we went to our Ward Talent show and had a blast! It was so funny and random, and it was really great to get to talk to some members we hadn't met yet. We already feel connected to this ward and I will miss them for sure. Saturday we went exploring to the Great Falls National Park. It's about a 10 minute drive from our house, and a lot of people kept telling us we just HAD to see it. Mind you, we have our own falls in Idaho that are pretty cool, but we decided to go check it out. It was beautiful. Half of the fun is driving there, because you have to go through all of these estates to get to this hidden park. Houses that looked like they should be churches!Here's what it looked like following the path to get to the falls. Beautiful!

Oh Nate, can always count on him for anything but a normal smile. :)
I liked this park a lot. It was a nice little trail to get there, and the falls were pretty good. It's no Niagra, but it's cool that this place is so close to home. We might go again tonight with some friends for Family Home Evening, if it's not raining.

That evening we had a stake meeting at the Temple on the 7th floor, and our good friends Clark and Kathy were so kind to let us tag along with them. (We were nervous about the betlway!) It was raining all afternoon, but by the time we got out about 830pm (after the meeting, we stayed and did sealings for awhile), the rain had made the sky just clear enough before nightfall for a pretty spectacular picture. This Temple is SO big, and quite different then most that I've been to. And it's just breathtaking. I've had some ladies at Curves who are not members describe it as Cinderella's castle. There is a really big visitor's center that we didn't have a chance to go to this time, but I'm really excited for the next time we get to go! I loved it!

Yes, I have a crummy new haircut (note to self: if the stylist name is Phu and doesn't speak english very well, maybe you should just wait until someone else can cut it). And no, Nate is not trying a new facial hair experiment. It was either shave, or be more late than we already were. Don't worry, he got a lot of guff for it.

After the temple, we went to dinner with the Kidd's at one of their fave mexican places, The Rio Grande. Fun atmosphere, really good food; it just so happens to also be George H W Bush's fave mexican restaurant. They use to have a pic of him there on the wall. They even make their own tortillas there. We had a good time, and always enjoy being in the company of the Kidd's.

Nate has officially decided he loves our ward because for Father's Day, each sister was supposed to make two pies and the "fathers" were going to get to pick one for themselves. They ended up just doing it free for all style, and I think Nate had a total of five large pieces. My pie was gone before I even got to the gym, so I was pretty proud of myself! -I am not a pie maker.

All in all, it was nice to have a fairly relaxing weekend, but we don't have that many left! We've already been here a month and can't believe it. There is still so very much on our list of things we want to do and see, and work just keeps getting in the way! We need more weekends!!

Happy Father's Day to all who may read this, and way to go to all the wives who read this who I'm sure made it an exceptional father's day for all.

archives and cosi's

Nate's neices held a birthday party for him this last friday. He even got a birthday crown. We had dinner and cake, then the girls got put to bed with a babysitter and the grown-ups went to indiana jones. We stayed that night in warrenton with sara and her family. We love playing with the girls and spending time with Sara and Hans. That's probably one of my very most favorite things about being here.

Hannah, Sadie, and Nate happy to be having a birthday celebration
Sara delivering the cake-way too many candles Nate!
Nate giving out airplanes to the girls from his cake. Sadie and Hannah really love cake!

We left Sara's house saturday morning, and headed back up to our place to figure out what we were going to do for that day. There is still so much I want to see and do, I can't believe it's already June! We ended up meeting up with our friends Ben and Kaylyn who were already downtown. It was 99 degrees that day and with humidity, the heat index was about 111. We thought that maybe no one would want to be standing outside in line to see the national archives (because there is usually a line around the entire block just to get inside the building, where you have to stand in another line!). We were right! There was hardly anyone standing outside, so we made our way into the national archives and spent several hours inside (where it was nice and cool and lots to learn about).

This is the Magna Carta. You don't have to wait in line for this one; they put it where you can look at it while standing in line for the Declaration of Independence
Here is the view looking into the Rotunda where the Declaration, Bill of Rights, etc are kept. The Rotunda is a really beautiful room; this pic definitely does not do it justice. There are hugs murals on the side of the wall that are of Washington, Jefferson, and lots of others, then the ceiling is a huge vaulted area. It's just really cool.

Sorry if the pictures are a bit hard to see. You can't have a flash on your camera, because it can destroy these very important pieces of paper, and it's pretty dark inside the Rotunda. All of the articles are underneath VERY thick glass, too (just like National Treasure!). It feels so surreal to see these stuff, it's real! I love every minute of it.

We ended our night going to this really cool little restaurant called Cosi's. It has cute mismatched furniture, and yummy hearth baked food. The absolute very best part is that you can order S'mores for dessert and they bring you an open flame to make your own. See look!

SO Nate's smile was a bit overdone, but I was truly that excited to be making S'mores in the restaurant! It was so cool. We're thinking Cosi's would do very well in Logan...

This Friday we have a ward talent night that we are looking forward to attending and getting to know members of our ward a little more. Our friends Clark and Kathy had us over for games last night and we had another blast. We love all of the new games they are teaching us and we really love spending time with them. They've invited us to ride up to the Temple with them this saturday; our stake is having a Temple excursion and we are so happy to be attending. As always, this week just started, but I can't wait for it to be over so we can have another weekend!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DEAR FRIEND CHRIS AT LOGAN CURVES! I love and miss you, girl. Hope you have a FABULOUS day!

Happy Birthday, Nate!! Have a tornado!

Happy Birthday, Nate! Big 25...he is feeling really old :)
Let me begin by prefacing Nate's birthday history; he hates his birthday. When I met him, he told me he had never had a good birthday and he would rather pretend like it didn't exist. So of course I have taken it upon myself for the last several years to make sure he always has an awesome day.Birthday #25 began with blueberry pancakes delivered to his bed with OJ, and presents waiting for him on the floor. I did not pack any wrapping paper and was not about to go buy some, cause I will not pack it home. So garbage bags worked nicely.

I had all of these things planned for the day, and needed to pick up a few items before he got home from work. So I worked through my lunch to leave early. Just as I was gathering my things, I looked out the window and it was pitch black. Mind you, it's about 3pm and I can't see outside. Next, the brightest lightning and loudest thunder came accompianed by pouring rain and monstrous wind. The topic of conversation at work that day was how there are always tornado warnings around here and how they never mean anything. So I called my boss to ask her if I was in a tornado. LONG story short, I ended up in the bathroom at work for about half hour because it was the only place with no windows and I was all by myself. I was not trained to deal with tornadoes in Utah! It was so crazy how loud the storm was; I was completely freaking out! (Don't worry, Mom I was safer that safe.) The tornado hit in the town next to us, but just caused a lot of wind damage here. Power was out basically everywhere (except for my work, however that happend!) and a lot of the street lights are still down. As you can imagine, this caused chaos because it was already rush hour, now everyone is wanting to try to go home because of the storm, and street lights aren't working. Needless to say, thsi ruined a lot of my plans to have things ready before Nate got home from work. Anyways, everything is fine and here are his presents.

A really cool card from Grandma Betty and Pop that said "Hope your birthday is out of this world"
A Ronnie Price t-shirt, Nate's fave Jazz man, they just don't make his jersey yet, so he had to get a shirt.
But he did get a Millsap jersey! He seemed pretty excited.

And of course it wouldn't be a Nate celebration if there wasn't a Wii present. He got the new MarioKart that you play with a steering wheel like you are really driving.

Nate chose Five Guys to go out to eat, so we made our way over there, enjoyed another spectacular burger, and got home just in time for another storm. We hadn't been inside for 2 minutes and another tornado warning came. This one wasn't anything like earlier today; it was basically just a severe thunderstorm. This new tornado was south of us about an hour tonight. It's still raining, but the sun is out; atleast it's cooling things off. I'm already dying with the humidity; I feel like I can't breathe and it's only the beginning of June. Well, we sure hope that this is not normal weather for Virginia, because if it is, I think my mom is going make me quit Virginia and come home! ;)

We had Snicker's ice cream cake for birthday treat dessert and Nate blew out 7 candles, cause 2 + 5 =7 and I didn't have 25 candles. We are going to end his day watching the new movie he got today, The Cowboys with John Wayne. This will be the only day I ever eatch this show and I'm only doing it for his birthday. Well, as Nate says, something has to happen on his birthday; so besides this whole tornado ordeal, we think it's been a pretty good day for him. The tv just said there are supposed to be more storms all daya tomorrow...oh I'm already sick of this.

LOVE YOU NATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Perils of the Lost Jungle

Friday night we went with our friends Ben and Kaylyn (Ben was one of Nate's old roommates and is also doing an internship out here. They live about 12 minutes from us, so we play with them a lot.) to a really awesome mini-golf place called The Perils of the Lost Jungle(mucho thanks to the Hartwell's for letting us know about it!). Yes, it was quite a pretty penny for mini golf, but WAY worth it.

All four of us just so happened to be wearing green that night, so of course we had to get a picture of that. And it was fun because we were in the middle of the jungle-we blended right in.

Ben and KaylynGo team green!

As you might guess, this is definitely no ordinary mini golf. It came complete with quicksand, witchdoctors, spitting frogs (which was so funny!), and many other various challenges. Here are a few of our faves:

This guy pops up out of nowhere and is supposed to spit fire darts at you if you don't hit the ball the right way. I did not hit the ball the right wayThis alligator is hiding in the pond and as you walk down to where you just hit your ball on the green, it comes up out of the water and spray LOTS of water on you. It was so cool!

Needless to say, I don't know if we can ever go mini golfing anywhere ever again! This is rated one of the top five in the nation; I can't imagine what the other four are like!!

Saturday we went to DC again with Ben and Kaylyn. W e are basically pro's with this whole traveling downtown thing. All week we'd been hearing that there would be rain on saturday, so we were trying to plan what we could do inside. On saturday morning, we heard tornado watch and thunderstorms for DC. So we went to DC! (Sorry Mom! :) ) We wanted to go to some of the smithsonians on the east end of the mall and go to the capitol. We came up the escalator off the metro and weather seemed nice, took about five steps and were suddenly in the middle of a monsoon!!! It was POURING, like I'd never seen pouring rain before! We ran to the nearest building to get in some shelter, but it was a small doorway and there was no room for us because everyone else had the same idea. We ran to the next building which put us still outside but with some shelter. We were wanting to go to the Air and Space Museum which was about two buildings away from where we were, so we planned our escape route and bolted. I couldn't help but laugh the whole way. It was madness! It was still warm outside, so atleast we weren't freezing, and we were trying to jump over the huge puddles in the street, but we were already soaking wet! Oh, what an adventure. We made it in the air and space just sopping, ringed out our clothes a little, then went on our way around the museum!

This is looking up into the _______________________________You could see the burn marks and stuff on the outside, pretty amazing.

Here is THE first plane created by the Wright Brothers. I really liked this section of the museum dedicated to them; I learned a lot and I liked the way they had things done in there.

I took this picture for Trayson who LOVES planes and helicopters and propellors. This is only one of about 7 HUGE displays of aircrafts. It's so cool.

I couldn't believe how big the Air and Space was and how much stuff was in there! I really liked the World War 2 part and going inside the space exploratory lab, which was inside a rocket and you could see how they live in there. I don't know how people come to DC for vacation and try to see everything. It would be exhausting! I'm so glad we are here for awhile. After Air and Space, we walked through the national sculpture garden over to the national history musuem. (The rain stopped by now by the way, but it was really muggy like it was going to come down again.)

This is what you see when you very first walk in the doors. A GIANT elephant. It was way cool.

We made our way to the mammal house and saw every stuffed mammal ever imaginable. This hippo one was our favorite though.

Th fish, fossils and bones section was next. We really liked this guy

Of course we had to take a pic of the t-rex. It was pretty spectacular. The dinosaur part was really neat.

Next came the minerals section of the musuem. I LOVED all the topaz we saw in the gems part, but there were some really amazing jewels we saw too. They were just behind glass, so dificult to get good pics, but this giant topaz made my day.This is the Hope Diamond. It is the largest blue diamond in the world, and the most pure and clear I believe, surrounded on a chain that totals over 50 carats. I wish this pic showed that deep blue, but atleast you can see the size of it!

Interesting tidbit, I thought.

So we completed the entire national history museum. This is just looking down onto that big elephant; I just really liked it!

We were feeling pretty tired and hungry(and we get excited to eat on the weekend because we are making it a goal to try something new every weekend, and it can't be somoething that's in Utah. It's a really fun adventure!) and decided to call it a day.

This is called the Smithsonian Castle. We haven't been in yet, so we don't know what's in there, but it's just an incredible building, so I needed a pic, and yes, it did turn out to be a beautiful blue sky day, jut as we were leaving downtown.

There is a couple that lives in our neighborhood who are the only other church members on our street, and they invited us over to their house for dinner tonight. We got to make potstickers with them (which were wonderful!) and play a way fun game, which they totally whooped us on. It was a lot of fun to get to know them and learn more about "out here". He is originally from Utah, graduated from Ogden High, and she is from New Orleans. They've been here since about the late 80's, nd they are a really fun couple. We got lots of new ideas for places to eat, and they gave us the scoop on cheap grocery stores. We are excited to get to spend more time with them, and really appreciate them taking the time to consider us and befriend us. Thank you so much, Clark and Kathy! We look forward to Time's Up rematch!

Well, another long week is about to start and I am just putting it off. I live for the weekends more than ever. My work is keeping me busier than I planned on, but the more earned money the better I suppose. Nate is really getting into his current project he is working on for the government and loves all of the free meals tha Orbital keeps providing. He got his first paycheck and was so excited until he was how much he'd actually earned and how much taxes came out! yowzah, but he's still making much more than he would've been back home, so we'll take it. I look forward to visiting more smithsonian's; I'm actually really learning a lot about a lot of stuff! In fact, it won us a point in our game tonight to know who Yuri Gagarin was! (look it up, or come to the national air and space museum and learn about him) :)