Dinner at the Hotel - Mon. Feb. 16

We tried to be up and at 'em but we were just too jet lagged - 3 hours difference really takes a toll. But once we were on the move - we didn't stop - and our first Smithsonian Monday "morning" was The National Air and Space Museum.

This place is sooooo cool!!!


...all things to do with Australia...

Evan playing on a flight simulator - but he was disappointed - it wouldn't let you crash

Heat sensitive sensor picture

Claire with Orville and Wilbur Wright



Claire's favorite exhibit - the pandas in the gift shop

Yep - it's the Starship Enterprise - but it was in the basement gift shop...

Cool spire sculpture thing in front of Air and Space Museum

On to The National Gallery of Art

Such as the days when we learned our classical music from Bugs Bunny and Merri Melodies, we are now learning our art history from Food Network. Before we left on the trip we saw a Challenge where the cake builders had to incorporate a sculpture into their design - two of the sculptures used - Rodin's The Thinker and Degas' the Little Dancer. And to our pleasant surprise what did we see when we entered our first gallery -

Rodin's The Thinker

Degas' The Little Dancer (there were two!)

Seeing as we were in the sculpture galleries first, that meant Evan had to say "We're just looking at a bunch of naked people..." But we moved along... at different speeds

My family waiting patiently for me - I moved a little slower than they did in the museums



Claire and Evan took many pictures of the art - here are a couple favorites

Claire's picks - Fragonard's A Young Girl Reading

Pietro Magni's the Reading Girl

Evan's picks - Jacques-Louis David's The Emperor Napoleon

Chalice from the Middle Ages


Or as Evan would say "A Fancy Cup"

Tired people

To the Capitol! I tell ya - we had to take a picture everytime we saw it


Another sight we had to take a picture of everytime we saw it

Back of the Capitol (there was a sharp shooter walking around there, but I don't think you can see her/him)

The Library of Congress Jefferson Building

The Supreme Court Building

A pretty sunset for our walk back to the hotel

After walking all day - we were so tired. We had sweet and sour chicken for dinner provided by the hotel (they provided breakfast and dinner Mon-Wed). Then we went up to our room. It was around 6:30/7:00ish. The kids and I sat down on the couch and didn't move, watching Wrecreation Nation - and Greg rested on the bed and fell asleep! Noooooo - we're in DC - we need to be up and moving! At 9:00 Greg got his second wind and we went out for a drive - we went looking for the White House, and the free parking lots we read about in a magazine. We located the lots, and decided we'd start our day there Tuesday - close to the Jefferson Memorial.

Dinner in our Room - Sun. Feb. 15

Sunday morning we went to church at the Capitol Hill Ward. Claire and Evan met teenage pages during Sunday School. We were surprised pages could be so young. One of the YW reported how she cast her senator's vote for the stimilus package. It was all very exciting to Claire - running around DC doing "real" political business, studying in the Library of Congress - it all sounded very appealing to her. After church we went back to the hotel to eat our tasty TV dinner type food, change, and head out to see the National Mall and the war memorials in the mall.
The Washington Monument


A good reminder for everyone

The World War II Memorial



The Atlantic Side

The Pacific Side

In honor of Grandpa Alan

The Korean War Memorial



Can you see Evan taking the picture?


We notice all things to do with Australia (Australia is first in the list of allies)

Look close - these are paratroopers - again, in honor of Grandpa Alan

The Vietnam War Memorial


The Lincoln Memorial - Evan referred to it as Abe's House

The National Mall from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial



After our visit to the memorials, we headed back to our hotel to eat dinner - raviolis and some other "things". We changed back to our Sunday clothes to make our way to the Washington DC Temple to attend a fireside at the visitor's center given by temple president Elder Tingey and his wife - the theme "Why I Believe." It was a missionary fireside. The visitor center has a large amphitheater. It was filled with missionaries, new members and various others (like ourselves). I think they have this type of fireside often. A brand new member offered the prayer. Two new members bore their testimonies, and then the other new members were invited to introduce themselves from their seats saying when they were baptized and what ward they attended. There were many. And then Elder and Sister Tingey spoke. It was a great! fireside. I'm so glad we learned about it - in the Capitol Hill Ward Bulletin.

Dinner in DC

We had dinner in the Washington DC area 6 nights in a row. Yep - we went to Washington DC for the kids' winter break - Sat Feb 14 - Friday Feb 20. It was a great trip! We have so many pictures. I just told Ryan via IM that I think we have over 1000 pictures - that's with two cameras and two cell phones. And I'm pretty sure there really is only about 20 different pictures, we all just took a ton of pictures of the same things over and over again. But - we will look through and post some of our favorites.

Dinner at Denny's - Sat. Feb. 14

We arrived in Baltimore Saturday evening around 5:00pm. Greg picked up our car - an Impala with incredible trunk space. It was amazing - really - we were all impressed and thrilled to ride in the car with luggage free laps. Equipped with our GPS from home, we headed towards DC. DC is about 40 miles south west of Baltimore - did you know that? I didn't know that. I know nothing of the east coast except that Maine is north and Florida is south. I failed to bring my wonderful, brand new AAA maps of the area. We counted on the GPS to get us everywhere we needed when in the car (anyone planning on a visit to the DC area I don't recommend this - a proper map would have been very helpful). Our first stop was to a Denny's for dinner. Greg and Evan had been to Denny's the night before after spending the day at the AT&T ProAM in Pebble Beach. They loved their "breakfast dinner" so much they talked about it so to see a Denny's sign on our way to DC it seemed the perfect place to stop. And it was - onion ring appetizers with eggs and bacon for dinner. Perfect. Our waitress was kind enough to give us directions to a Walmart and also explain the protocol for a traffic circle/roundabout. We made our way to the Walmart - loaded up with food for the week and made it to DC around 9:30 or so. We stayed the entire week at the Washington DC/Capitol Residence Inn - just a few blocks from the Capitol. http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/wascp-residence-inn-washington-dc-capitol/

Going to the Drive-In

The Youngmen and Youngwomen had a night at the drive-in movie tonight. Their cars were made out of cardboard boxes. The idea; bring your "cars" to the church and watch a movie with your friends. I believe there was a bit of a competition as well but the night isn't over yet so I don't know if they had the competition or not. But Evan and Claire were excited for the event.

Here is Claire's choice of transportation - Flying Shoes.

Claire's fancy flying shoes.

Evan and Johnathan went all out making a flatbed truck. They're sitting in the back - on a folding couch on a huge piece of cardboard - I couldn't fit the whole thing in the picture. But the front of the truck sure is fun. They have head lights and all.

He did it!

Evan got his license today!! YAY!!



Can you tell - we're just the tiniest bit proud of him!

Guess it is time to change the family profile to the left here. He is now "the licensed driver...video game king..."

Butter Bells

Have you ever heard of Butter Bells? We hadn't heard of them until just this past December - there's a story - I'll save it. But, now we have one and here's what it looks like.
It's a small crock.

Take the "top" off and tip the top over (it's important you know just to tip the top over)

And voila - the butter is in the "bell" kept fresh by being stored in the crock which has just a tad bit of water in it - when you put the bell in, it makes a seal. The butter can sit out on the counter for days and kept fresh yet soft to spread.

We are intrigued.

Cake Decorating

Greg delivered Claire to her Young Women activity on Wednesday night. Claire was very excited. They were doing cake decorating, taught by the gal who made her birthday cake. The plan was for me to take Evan and his friend Brian to indoor soccer over at the church - at 7:00. But I'd be the one to pick up Claire at 8:30 and Greg would bring the boys home as he was going to end up at the church eventually. At 8:00 I received a phone call from Greg. He was decorating his own cake - would I please pick up Evan and Brian. So I did. And that meant, two cakes came home from the activity - Claire's and Greg's. And since Greg doesn't eat desserts - guess who took ownership of the cake - me! And I promptly cut a slice for myself.

So - here is the cake Greg decorated, minus some pieces.

Evan enjoying a piece.

Claire's Cake

Claire was disappointed we didn't take a picture of her cake - so here it is.

Greg's Birthday

Greg had a birthday! Jan 3rd - we were just home from Utah. It being a "free" Saturday he got to sleep in. He had pancakes for breakfast served on the "you are special today" plate. His plans for the day - visit the Acura dealership, find himself a treadmill and take a hike/walk with the family. Come the end of the day we all went to dinner at Mandarin Gourmet. Yeah - Chinese food - not his favorite but one of Kathy's favorites and seemed OK to Claire and Evan - it was Greg's idea. I think he had a good day.
The hike was on the Quicksilver Trail - around Almaden http://www.geocities.com/almadenqs/englishtown.html#Castillero
Was a beautiful but very "crisp" day. It isn't a long hike. Greg promised the kids we'd be done in an hour. We would have but we paused at one point to sit and enjoy the view.

Ryan to BYU

At the end of our New Year week, we delivered Ryan to his new accommodations in Provo. Was a crazy day starting with letting Ryan sleep a "little" late before asking if he was well enough to make the trip. He said he was. Then Greg needed to get a tire fixed/patched on our rental car - it had been losing air. Our trip to get Ryan set up in his apartment turned into a whirlwind drive to check him in, shop at Walmart, dump (literally) all his things in his apartment and turn around to head right back up to Tremonton. We had to move quickly because as soon as we were to get to Tremonton we needed to head back to Salt Lake to make our flight home. Unfortunately, we were a tad behind schedule when we left Provo and as soon as we came into Salt Lake a storm hit. It was pretty slow going and we had to call Harris cousins to bail us out. Blair met us in Ogden to pick up Ryan - we hugged good bye in a snowstorm (it didn’t really seem too stormish since snow is so "soft" but it was falling fast and heavy). We did make it to the airport in time for check in etc. The flight was on schedule all evening until we made it to the gate where they started to announce delays but we weren't stuck so can't complain about that. We were just an hour behind schedule getting off the ground. We pulled into home around 1am.

Ryan's new place - WyView Apartments - He's in Building 16 #214. I think it is an ideal location. He is just seconds away from the launderette and the mini market.


Ryan has two roommates - Nathan whom he shares a room with and Ran, from China - this is Ran's room. Ryan's room is similar, just imagine a bunk bed set up where the bottom bunk is perpendicular to the top bunk and the *extra* space under the bed is a built in desk.


The beautiful mountains. Had to get a picture of them. This is the view from the parking lot in front of his apartment.