National Capitol March 14

On March 14 a bunch of us took a tour of the National Capitol. I mentioned it briefly before, but here is a little more information. Natalie works for Senator Bennett and is authorized to gives tours of the Capitol, isn't she just nice?the girls: Kendra, Rebecca, me, Natalie Our tour guide tells us about the pictures on the ceiling.

This is the ceiling. Every state has two statues of famous people from their state in the capitol, you will see some of these.Where's Ohio?

This is a bad picture. This is a group of us with Brigham Young, one of Utah's famous person statues. The person taking the picture cut off the top of Brigham Young's head, and also there is much red eye. The red eye doesn't come off with the simple red eye fixer and I didn't feel like fixing the all red eye by hand for a bad picture, but it's the only one with all of us in it.

This is going to be my bathroom tile.

My state of birth.

This one's for you, Mom!

My mother was wondering if I have any friends because so far, my posts have been my solo trips or playing with Melina. Don't get me wrong, I love my solo trips and playing with Melina, but I also have other people that I hang out with. It's just a titch more awkward to make everyone you're with take pictures of everything you do, so there are fewer of those, but here are some. I've also been to barbecues (yes in March, it's been that warm) and I go to Institute (religion studies) and activities with other people in the area. It's been quite fun.

This is a Mardi Gras celebration. From left to right are me, Melina, lamppost, traffic light, Rebecca (my new English friend that I hang out with a lot)

I like music and I like concerts (apparently more than I like my hearing, as many of you already know). This is a local Virginia artist named Justin Trawick and his band. Note the accordion, upright base, and saxophone as unusual instruments in a rock band, but he pulls it together really well. I'm a fan, a huge fan.

And when Rebecca and I got to meet Justin Trawick, we were a little star struck.

Here are a bunch of us about to take a tour of the National Capitol by a Senator Bennet (Utah)staffer.

See, I can make friends :) I'm not lame, well I suppose that's debatable.

Happy Birthday Dr. Suess! March 2

(Again, sorry for the lateness. Man I need to work on this.)As a celebrator of all holidays and with a fondness for Dr. Suess and his excellent works, Melina, Melina's sister Tiana, and I had a birthday party for Dr. Suess. We had green eggs and ham-burgers (Tiana's idea) with green stars on our bellies (Melina's idea). My contribution? a snow sculpture of pale green pants with nobody inside them.

an unconventional Presidents' Day

What's a conventional Presidents' Day? I don't know, but it sure isn't something I would do, most likely. Well, to celebrate Presidents' Day, we headed to the local Starbuck's and enjoyed milk steamers and biographies of United States presidents. I am reading David McCullough's John Adams and Melina is burying herself in His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis. Our presidential biography reading then turned to a scholarly discussion about presidents. Here are the results of our discussion:

President with the best hair: John F. Kennedy
President with the craziest hair: tie Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren

President with the best mullet: James K. Polk

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day really is one of my favorite holidays. I love the love and the pink and the hearts. In the morning, Melina and I donned our favorite pink ensembles (just call me bubble gum) and enjoyed pink pancakes. Later that evening we had a heart-shaped pizza (see below) and then made Valentine cupcakes (see below the picture below) and also Valentine cards for Melina's neighbors (see below below below). The cards had much glitter and pink and happiness. We surely spread the love around on Valentine's Day.

Happy Birthday President Abraham Lincoln! Happy Birthday to You!

I paid my respects to President Lincoln on his 200th birthday, February 12th. What a neat guy. There were also many other people paying their respects (see the wreaths). Instead of a wreath, I sang the song "happy birthday" to him. For those of you asking yourselves right now, if I sang the "birthday medley" to him, I did not, for I was by myself and the "birthday medley" works much better with another person who also knows this version. And now, some of you are wondering what the "birthday medley" is. Call me on your birthday. I'll sing it to you.


Then, I headed over to the National Archives for a look-a-see at the Emancipation Proclamation. It was on loan to the National Archives for President Lincoln's birthday. I actually have no idea where the Emancipation Proclamation is on loan from, but this day I saw it and here is a picture of it. The handwriting is actually really big, that surprised me.

Also of note, here is the building for the offices of the Internal Revenue Service. As I was walking around downtown DC, I passed this building and thought you would all like to see a snapshot of the place where people are feverishly working for you :)

Natural History Museum

This is a lovely life-sized elephant that you see when you first walk in the museum. I named him Lovely Elelphant. Sometimes when you go see museums, you see them with other people. I know, quite a shocker, isn't it? And sometimes those other people have children, and sometimes those children are not quite willing to cooperate. So, as we explored the Natural History Museum, we didn't see all of it but, I did take pictures of the finer things of nature's history.

The Ocean Hall. Pretty much everything in the Ocean Hall creeped me out or disgusted me, no pictures of the ocean.

The Mammal Room. What makes a mammal a mammal? Luckily I have the answer for you. If you are not in, or teaching elementary school right now, you will remember that mammals produce milk and also have hair. This is what makes a mammal a mammal. However, they are now teaching the children that in order to be a mammal you must also have special ear bones. It gets more complicated all the time. Next they'll be teaching the children about diaphragms and jaw bones, what is the world coming to?

You would think that these pictures of the mammals would creep me out, as did many things in the ocean, but they did not, they fascinated me. I love the natural history we are teaching the children here. Sure, they had normal animals for the kids to enjoy, but we must also note the predators and victims of nature. "Look honey, high abover your head, there's a very satisfied looking leopard in a tree with it's dinner. Don't worry dear, the antelope had it coming to him and plus, the leopard has to eat, right?"

On to the Dinosaur Room. I couldn't really get a good picture of this because of the many screaming tykes who wanted their picture with the dinosaur too. I just like to take this moment to thank my dentist for taking such good care of my teeth, otherwise they might be the same color as Rex's teeth. Rex's teeth look a lot sharper though.