Washigton Monument

James and Becca

James made a new friend while we were in D.C. He and Becca were so cute together. James would get really concerned if Becca was crying or yelling, and if we did not do anything to help her, he would start to cry too. Here is their first meeting. Playing while Bacca's parents and Jon were busy moving. Waiting to god to church. If Becca was ever close enough to James, she would grab his arm or hug him and pull him or herself closer. Watching Little Einstiens. Feet in the air.

Smithsonian and Stuff

Here are some random pictures of some buildings I took, because the buildings looked cool or we want to visit them someday. We wanted to visit the National Archives, but there was not time on the day we were going to do it. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (Money). The Department of Agriculture (the one with the "bridge"). Smithsonian Castle. Another of the Smithsonian Buildings (I cannot remember which). The D.C. War Memorial.

Supreme Court Building

We walked by the Supreme Court Building. I love the columns! This is looking toward the Capitol from the Supreme Court Building.

Youth Conference

A little break from D.C. pictures.

Youth Conference is now over. I am glad. It was a little stressful, but I believe it turned out really good. The youth seemed to enjoy their "missions." I have heard some really good experiences. Sadly, I did not take any pictures except these (it is 9:00 a.m. in these pictures). Saturday morning, there was a great down pour outside. Not many at Youth Conference got to see it, since they were in a speaker. It was an incredible storm! At one point, I could not see the cars on the other side of the parking lot, and there was a torrential river coming off the church. (My camera was not working right away, and when it was there was less water coming off the church.) One of the door in the church leaks too, so there was some water to clean up. Any way, Youth Conference was a success, and now there is nothing much on the stake level until September.

Naval Memorial

James and I stopped in the shade to eat, while Jon went and looked around at the Naval Memorial.

Library of Congress

We kind of took a tour of the Library of Congress. Well, we started off on a tour, but it was not what we were expecting so we broke off of the tour and just looked around. The buliding is beautiful! There was a fire in it the first time it was built, so they decided to make it out of something that would not burn when they rebuilt it. James was again really good. He enjoyed playing and being inside out of the heat. Here is another slide show of our pictures (I found a slide show is best when I have a ton of pictures of something).

United States Capitol Building

We walked "the mall" from the Smithsonian Metro Station to the Capitol Building. It was about a mile walk. Here is a slide show of what we saw as we walked and when we got to the Capitol.

This is James taking a little nap in some shade by the Capitol.
It was not much cooler in the shade.

Arlington

So I think I can get to posting about our trip now. The first place we visited was Arlington National Cemetery. We went on Father's Day. Here is James on the ride to the cemetery. He loved sitting next to daddy. In case anyone is wondering, the cemetery closes at 7:00 p.m. We got there at 6:40. Just enough time to walk to the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" and see the changing of the guard. When the changing of the guard was done we were told by one of the soldiers that the cemetery was now closed and so everyone needed to leave. I snapped a few pictures on the walk in and out.Here is one looking toward the Washington Monument from the parking lot at Arlington.

Busy

I have been trying to work on some posts for our D.C. trip. Things have been really busy for me though. I am working on getting things ready for Youth Conference, unpacking from all of our traveling, and trying to get our apartment back in order. Because of this, I have not been able to blog as much as I had wanted. Next week should be better. Youth Conference is today and tomorrow. It should be really good, but as normal, I am ready for it to be over. It is a lot of work and stressful to plan and get everything ready for these big activities.

Metro

So I have finally gotten all of my pictures from D.C. downloaded and sorted. There were over 300!

I will start telling about our adventure with our mode of transportation, the Metro. How many heard about this, "Deadliest Crash in Metrorail History"? Our first day on the Metro, this is what happened....

On our way out of the city during rush hour, there was a train in front of us, which was having "mechanical" problems. That is what they kept telling us. Because of this, the trains were really backed up. This and it being rush hour caused the trains to be totally packed, and what would have been a half hour trip, was a hour and a half. James was a champ.

After we finally got back to our friends' home, we found out there had been a crash on the Metro behind us. We got on the train at 4:30, and the accident happened at around 5:00. This is my opinion, I think the reason it was the deadliest is that everything was so backed up during rush hour and the train was packed. One train had stopped to wait for a train in front of them (again because of the back up). There was a computer error, where the train behind this stopped train did not detect the stopped train and therefore there was an accident. If you want to read about this accident, go to CNN's webpage and search "Metro Crash." It was exciting!

In case you were wondering, yes, we still rode the Metro for two more days after that, and we even rode in the front car, because it was the emptiest. James loved riding the train, and it really is the best way to get around downtown D.C. James was entertainment to all who rode the train, too. Even the hard businessmen, would smile when they saw James smiling at them.

Here are a few pictures of James on the Metro.

Back from Camp

I am now back from Young Women Camp, and I have a ton of catching up to do. Hopefully in the next few days, I will get pictures and stories from our last two weeks posted here. That is the plan any way. For now just knowing I am home and there will be more coming will have to do. I need to unpack from both camp and our trip to D.C. and do some laundry.

Home Again, Home Again...

We got home from D.C., and I immediately began getting ready for Girls' Camp, which mostly means laundry, laundry, laundry. I leave for camp at 7:30 Monday morning, so there will be another long break in blogging unless Jon does some while I am gone.

We came home to no AC, again. Jon will have to call the office Monday morning, since it was Saturday night. I hope they can permanently fix the problem this time, and not just keep doing the same thing over and over. It is not working.

However, we did come home to an exciting piece of mail. Jon's first check for his book! It is not much, but more than we were expecting. Apparently they have sold over 1500 copies! (Sorry I put the wrong number in earlier. I put the dollar amount not the number of copies.) There will be more coming since this was just as of November 2008. Very exciting!