The Good, The Really Good, and the Weird

Events in my life have drawn mixed emotions and what else can I do about it than blog about it?

THE GOOD
Only approximately 20 days left of work, then I can play and school.

THE REALLY GOOD
1.  I got a letter from Elder Seth Hall today!  Which was perfect timing, since today is 3 months left until he's home!

(front row, far right, first week)

He sounds like such a great missionary and I'm so proud of our widdle Sethy-Poo!  I'm excited to hear the mish stories first hand from him.

One of my fav picts of us...we're always looking out for each other like good besties should, including grooming like monkeys (fyi: I didn't and I don't have bugs in my hair).

I also got a letter from Elder Tavana Alailima, recently.

He sounds like he's doing great in Panama :)

I decided that missions are really really awesome.

2.  I got a plane ticket to California for the first time in 3 years. My family and I always go every summer, but due to working schedules and what-not, I've missed out for 3 summers in a row.  For a few days of this trip, I get some of this, again:

PARTY IN CALIFORNIA IN 34 DAYS!! <3

3.  TOMORROW I get to see my bestie for the first time in 2.5 months.  With being together 24/7 for 4 months straight having the time of our lives, then separated for 2.5 months, it makes me a little bit excited...

I MISSED HER! Beach on Saturday :)

4.  Another one of my roommates got married. Congrats, Mrs. Lyndee Francom!

(top row, far right=Lyndee and second row, left=Leanne, another Mrs.)

I miss our awkward family pictures and hip hop in the living room and squeezing 4 girls on one couch during scary movies.

THE WEIRD

1. Ok, so I work a lot.  And I see and hear some funny things.  A recent occurance is during the late shift.  Every night at the exact same time, while I'm working downstairs by the big window, I see an old man walk across the parking lot of the clinic without a shirt, carrying a paper bag.  Without fail. Whaaa??!!

2. Driving down Borland Road, there's a farm on the side of the road of llamas/alpacas/whatever.  One day, my mom and I were driving by the farm and noticed that the llamas/alpacas/whatever were shaved everywhere except their heads, feet and tails.  Poodle llamas.  Funniest thing to see, just think about it.

3. I took a call at work and the older man on the line requested the time of his appointment.  I told him and asked if he could still make it.  He paused and then said, "I will for you."  I couldn't stop laughing.  He said, "That was good, huh?"  And I replied, "Yeah, that was a good one haha."

"Tomorrow's just a song away" -Hockey

Peace and love.

district o columbia, part tres

SUNDAY
The HOTTEST day I've had to live through in a long time. 
We started out at Arlington Cemetery, which is a humbling, sobering place.  There are 300, 000 gravesites there, about, and it's an active cemetery, so people are buried there still everyday.  We got the full tour, including visiting JFK an his family's graves and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  The Tomb of the Unknown was really neat to see.  It's guarded 24/7/365, including when Katrina hit.  The guard walks 21 steps, pauses for 21 seconds, then turns around and repeats. We saw the changing of the guard, too.  Very ceremonial and respectful.  Another cool thing about this was the fact that Fowler Middle School did the presenting of the wreath that was placed in front of the tomb!! The exact time that we were there on the same day. What are the odds?  Fowler MS is in my hometown's school district, for those who don't know.
We also saw the Arlington House, where General Lee lived with his family before the Civil War.  Karah and Liz, I thought about y'all the whole time.  Remember that one time you sent me a General Lee postcard, Karah? Still have it.  "The South with rise again!!" haha miss you.
So, Oregon hadn't reached 80 yet since I had been home, so you could imagine our little white Oregonian selves were suffering in 100 degree humid heat. In fact, as we were loading the tour bus, my dad made a comment about how hot it was and the tour guide said, "you're from the NW, aren't you?" Yep. We are.

We then walked over to the Iwo Jima memorial.

America rocks.

We headed over to the Holocaust Museum, but the main part of the museum was out of tickets for the day, so we decided to come back a different time.

I had left some stuff at our last hotel, so my mom and I fetched it and ate ice cream.

That night we went to a really good restaurant called Old Ebbitt's Grill, right across the street from the White House.  Yum.

MONDAY

The older boys and I took a second trip to the Holocaust Museum so that we can actually see the main part of the museum.  We waited in line for a long while, but it was worth it!  You get a passport at the beginning that has the information for a real person who lived during this time.  Each day/stage of the person's life is a level of the museum.  So we can learn about the real person at each part of the Holocaust.  First level was from 1933-1939, when Hitler was gaining power. Second, was from 1939-1945 during the war. Last level was post-war and the aftermath.  Gosh, it was so depressing, but good and informational.  The saddest part for me was the pile of shoes that they collected from the people they were about to gas in the concentration camps.  There were lots. 

We had our last big tour at the Supreme Court.  We went into the actual court and the girl told us all about the room and how things work there.  There is a frieze running along the top of the room with all of the people whom the artist thought were important in the history of laws (Moses, etc) and the fact that it's built like a Greek/Roman temple makes me love it!  Reminds me so much of London.

The next stop was one of my favorite favorite things about DC (now don't laugh at my nerdiness)--The Library of Congress!!  Imagine thousands and thousands of books in a big beautifully constructed room in a big beautifully constructed building.  (ok, stop laughing, now)  But, seriously, after seeing Thomas Jefferson's collection, it instantly became my life goal to work with old books.  I want to research out of them, I want to preserve them, I want to read them.  Add to Michelle's Bucket List: get into the Library of Congress.  Already added to Bucket List: get a reading pass for the British Library, too.

TUESDAY

I forgot to mention that one of the days (I forget which one) previous to this one we went to the American Museum of National History.  That was one of my favorite museums.  It had Kermit the Frog, the Red Ruby Slippers, and C3PO from the Star Wars movies.  Plus, Julia Child's kitchen.  They also had THE Star Spangled Banner that inspired our National Anthem.  REALLY cool. 

Anyways, I was reminded me because this day was the day of museums. 

MUSEUM #1: NEWSEUM...We started out at the Newseum (the news museum), which is the newest one in the city, I think, and so it's funky fresh.  They had the Pulitzer Prize-winning pictures from almost each year.  Some just broke my heart, but the whole exhibit was really really awesome.  I almost cried on the 9/11 floor.  They had the front pages of newspapers from all over the world from 9/11/01 plus the antenna from the top of one of the towers, all mangled and twisted.  They showed footage from different journalists and reporters who were there at Ground Zero as the second plane hit the second tower.  Wow.

{antenna from the top of one of the World Trade Centers}

{front pages of worldwide newspapers from 9/11/01}

{part of the Berlin Wall and the only surviving tower from Berlin that's in America}

PLUS: Annie, Brittany and Kira would be happy to know that they had a 4D Experience.  This one had moving chairs, guys. I know.

MUSEUM #2: NATIONAL ART GALLERY...Again, memories from London just were all over the place.  The East side of the museum was the...interesting...modern art section.  Best part: HUGE elevator.

There's a really cool underground, flashy, sparkly tunnel connecting the East and West museums.  The West museum I liked a lot more.  They even had a Pissaro painting, along with a room of Degas sculptures and some Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Cezanne...the gang's all hereee!  Love it.

MUSEUM #3: AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM...have to be honest, not my favorite museum. And that's ok, I think with how many museums I've been to this year (=plenty).  I liked the space ships and the actual Wright Bros plane, but the rest was pretty ho-hum.  My mom and I got bored and got chocolate milkshakes at McDonald's.

WEDNESDAY

Mom and I slept in and then checked out the MLK Jr Library.  They had a book sale of their old books, so I got a few.  The others went to the Spy Museum.  Mom and I then went to Nandos for lunch...for my third time this trip.  I'm opening up a Nandos in Provo, I think it would be a big hit. 

That's it an' that's awl! 

Go America!

district o columbia, part dos

FRIDAY
Today was the busiest and most exhausting day of our trip.  We were up early to get in line for security at the White House.  My poor friend Hilary, by the 2nd or third time I told her that we got into the White House was like, "I know, Michelle, you got into the White House. Ha."  Sorry, Hilary, I was just too excited.
So, we got into the White House. And it was a LET. DOWN.  After waiting in line for almost an hour, then going through security, they handed us a pamphlet and let us loose. No tour. Approx 6.5 rooms.  35 minutes. The up side to the tour at this time in the morning was that we got to see the back of President Obama's head as he loaded his personal helicopter.
We got in another line to get tickets for going to the top of the Washington Monument.  It's in this line where we met a man by the name of Ray Walter Swangkee, aka The Peacock.  He showed us his rock houses and water irrigation system.  He is set on changing the world, one Intelligent Truth-Seeking Honest Robe-Wearing Person at a time.
We had some time, so we hit up Madame Tussad's. 

hanging with the Obamas

JoBros + Me = love

The next thing we did was so fun = SEGS IN THE CITY!!
Aka a Segway tour around DC.  We saw all of the monuments on our segways and I only almost bit it once.

SEGSY!

The fam bam had a tour of Ford's Theatre, where Lincoln was shot.  We sat in the theatre while a lady re-told the story.  Right at the part when booth jumped on the stage, there was a bang behind stage that scared the crap out of all of the audience. The tour included the Peterson house across the street where Lincoln died.

We had an early dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.

Then to the top of the Washington Monument! It's 555' 5.5" (OCD much?), so makes for an awesome view of DC, especially at dusk. 

Dad, Dan, Spence, and I tried out FroZenYo, much like FroYo in Provo. Good stuff!

SATURDAY

Syd, Mom, Sam and I hit up the National Zoo with two goals: pandas and porcupines.  DC's Zoo has the longest surviving pandas in captivity.  They also have this cool rope system that enables the orangutans to swing across the zoo above our heads.

We got picked up in a limo!  My mom likes to switch hotels in the middle of our vacations just so we can mix it up and try out different areas.  And none of us kids had ever been in a limo, sooo why not switch hotels in a limo?

That afternoon was Nandos trip #2 with my London friend LAURA! It was so good to see her and to catch up.

That night, my family and I went to the Nat'l Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Really cool! Go America!

district o columbia, part uno

TOTALS
museums = 6
monuments/memorials = 7
Nando trips = 3
Books bought = 6

WEDNESDAY
After a journey that started out at 5:15 AM, when we made it to our hotel, I headed straight to the pool.  Oregon has been having issues with getting it together on the whole summer means sunshine thing.  So you could imagine how happy I was to sit by the pool, in the shade, and still be warm.  The whole trip was in the 90s and while my family was suffering, I was relishing.
That night we took our first metro ride (instant flashbacks from London) to downtown to see all of the memorials at night...

{Washington...WWII...Lincoln}

THURSDAY
After breakfast, we took a tour of the Capitol. This was one of favorite things that we did. We had to apply about 6 months in advance for it with a representative from Oregon so they could do background checks and such.  An intern working for the OR rep. showed us around. We saw where the Reps offices are and the original Supreme Courts (they were in the same building until 1933, something that I didn't know!). 

{Original Supreme Court}

We went into the crypt where the center of DC is.  There's a star marking the center and it's worn down due to everyone rubbing it for good luck.

Then we saw the second Supreme Court, where there are plaques marking the spots where the desks of some past famous Congressmen used to sit.

Last, was the Rotunda, under where Lady Liberty stands. (dild you know that no statue or monument of a person can be taller than Lady Liberty?)  This was pretty cool, and the guide told us lots of info about it. 

Next, was the Crime and Punishment Museum. Ted Bundy's actual VW Bug is housed here.  This place was pretty cool, it bascially was about famous bad people (mafia, Bonnie and Clyde) and infamous crimes (President assassinations, kidnappings, etc). 
I knew I was going to love DC because of something that I discovered when I was waiting for my family to finish with the museum.  Some of the workers were talking about where they wanted to eat for dinner and I thought I heard someone say "Nandos".  I turned to her and said, "Wait, did you just say Nandos?"  And she said, "Yeah, it's this good chicken place down the street."  I couldn't believe it. NANDOS IN DC?!  Naturally, we went there for dinner and my family loved it.

love.

More to come!