Tuesday, October 27, 2009

A day with the Memorials

Here are some pictures from Columbus Day when we went into D.C. to see the monuments!
This is me in front of the Utah section of the WWII memorial. It is really cool. There are fountains in the middle. Two sides Pacific, and its battles, and Atlantic and its battles. Then around the whole thing are wreaths for every state.



Lincoln Memorial is so legendary, inside is the man himself (pictured above) and then engraven on the walls are the Gettysburg address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural address. Powerful message, he knew what he was talking about.


This one is tricky. I was laying down, and barely got it all in! Washington monument is TALL






Fantastic Weekend!

So don't you just love those really good weekends? We had one last. It was rainy on Saturday again, but sometimes you just have to work around the rain. So I said to Nate on Friday night, lets just drive to Monticello tomorrow, and we will make it work. So we found the directions to Charlottesville, and left about 9 the next morning. It was about a two hour and 45 min drive, but it was the most beautiful scenery ever! All of the leaves were changed and bursting with color. We were on a highway, and passed small towns, and country the whole way! I loved it.
Monticello is the home of Thomas Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration of Independence, third President, enlightened thinker, French Ambassador, etc. We got to learn a lot about him from our very well versed tour guide. His house is so intriguing because he took all the most modern, efficient inventions and made them a part of Monticello. His plantation and house are beautiful, and they are still kept up. All in all it was most impressive. They also showed a 20 min film we loved. Those films always get me because they get that inspirational music, and then on this one they went through history and showed groups that have followed Jefferson's words and fought for their own Independence and liberty. Nate and I were so fired up! Here are some photos.
We drove through Charlottesville and saw University of Virginia, Mr. Jefferson's school. It was a cool campus, stately buildings, fun to see.
The drive home consisted of trying to get text updates about the Utah game. We were nervous. We pulled up to our house, ran inside and saw the end of overtime and the VICTORY! Go Utes!
For dinner we drove to this Vietnamese center right by our house. We pulled up and everything was in Vietnamese and we were the only white people. Classic. Needless to say we ate at Viet Bistro, after feeling a little intimidated, and it was delicious! They played Titanic theme song for us on repeat while we ate...
Yea for a fun weekend!

Running in the Dark

So today the alarm went off like normal, we pulled ourselves out of bed, and I could hear it was pouring rain. Boo. It's pretty pitch when we go running in the morning, so we have to be careful of cars, obviously. Today I was wearing my BRIGHT yellow shirt from Boston. It is basically neon, and I thought this will be nice and visible. We had just crossed the street and were heading down to our home, when we saw about three cars waiting to turn left. The first two went because we weren't quite to the crossing. We approached the crossing and I waved in my BRIGHT yellow shirt to make sure he saw us. He paused, but I waved again to make sure he knew we were there. Just as it seemed he would wait for us, and as I continued past the FRONT of his car, he started pulling out! I was suddenly running sideways to get out of his way, but he kept coming for me even though I was right in his headlights! I got away just in time and his bumper just nicked my shoe! Ah! Poor Nate, was just standing by watching, he felt horrible. No the car never slowed, or even stopped to see if I was ok. Needless to say it was an Eventful morning, and I am fine. Hey I guess it brought up the question of what to do if you are ever going to get hit by a car, again. It's good to have a plan for that I suppose. Our next purchase... seriously though.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Babysitting

This is Joseph. He is about 20 months now, walking, talking (but not any words except NO!, and drooling lots! He is a pretty cute little guy! He loves to throw things, usually I try to give him balls, stuffed animals ect. He loves music and dancing. It is pretty fun to sing songs like itsy bitsy spider, head shoulders knees andtoes. He gets pretty into it! I took this funny video today. We were listening to my ipod, which he loves! Joseph is only 1/3 of my babysitting kids. I want to get pics of the other two. Boramy and Thalia. They are part Cambodian, ages 6 and 3.5 respectivly. They are funny because they always get me to play superheros with them, but they always freeze me with ice, or melt me with fire.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

The BIG Apple...Oh so sweet!



Yes... That is me in front of the WICKED poster on Broadway, and I am not just a poser. Nate, who is the best husband ever, suprised me with the WICKED tickets just a couple days before we left for New York. Thanks to our hard work cleaning this summer, we got to see the amazing show! Nate really liked it too. I was so grateful to him for getting the tickets, I owe him big!



It was fun to meet up with Blair and Emma. The picture of Manhattan was taken from the ferry to Ellis Island, and Liberty Island. It was such beautiful weather. We walked around a lot so we mosied around Times Square, Central Park, Uptown, Midtown. We made a visit to the Financial District, and saw Ground Zero. They had a cool memorial museaum with quotes and pictures. It made it more real to me, and really brought out the devestation, yet hope of the victims and their families.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390292042272323538" />


Ellis Island was one of my favorite places. In this picture I am standing in the Recording Room. About 1,000 immigrants passed through this room every day! They came from all over so there were interpreters, medical doctors assessing their health, and people who would sort them. Most of the immigrants were assigned a place to go like Philidelphia or Indiana, and then they would have their destination pinned to their hat or coat, and the workers would hand them their train ticket. The accounts said they were apprehensive, but filled with joy to be in America.




Nate was excited to show me Federal Hall, which was the First Capitol of the U.S. He is standing next to a statue of George Washington, because this is where he gave his first inaugural address. It was only Capitol for one year before they built another in Philidelphia. I was pumped to take a pic of Nate in front of the First capitol since he works at the acting capitol now!



A cool thing about visiting New York is seeing all of the places where movies are filmed. I liked seeing the Plaza Hotel, and Central Park, we even ate at Cafe Lalo which is in You've got Mail. Emma and I are pictured in front of the famous Museum of Natural History, from Night at the Museum. I was pumped just to see it! New York was such a great trip! We loved it, it was even good staying in Brooklyn! Oh and the pizza is dreamy in New York. Just for future referrence.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Welcome to NatsTown, and Harpers Ferry, and...



Hey all! Happy October! I hear some had snow in Salt Lake today, yikes, winter may be coming a little too soon! Nate and I are still just having a great time! I started another babysitting job on Thurs. and Fri from 3:30-6:30, which makes the days long, but it is nice to get a little extra dough.
Last weekend was great, I rode in the metro Friday night to meet Nate at the Nationals game. The baseball team is awful, but it was fun to be at a major league game anyway. We saw some runs, so it wasn't a total bust! We ate Nats dawgs, and met one of Nate's friend from the internship and his wife.
So here is kind of an aside, we usually go to the store every Sat. When we got home last week I lined up all of our cereals one the bookshelf and it looked like we had enough for a family of five. Sadly, enough those last us just about a week and a half! Big eaters!
On Sat. we went to Harpers Ferry, WV with Clark and Kara. It was rainy so we couldn't walk around tons outside. They had kept the town almost just as it was in the 19th century. It is pretty cool. It is also at the fork of the Potomac and Shenendoah Rivers, so the scenery is fabulous. That is the place John Brown, a fanatic abolishionist, made his run on the Federal Arsenal. He and his gang got cought by the U.S Marines, and were later hung. Interesting to think if he was a martyr for the cause of black slave freedom, or just a little off his rocker!
Anyway, there is a little update! We are off to New York this weekend! Yea~