DC Trip Day 5

Today was very neat. We were able to go on a private tour of the Capital Building with one of the Utah Senator's interns. He was able to take us to many places the public doesn't get to see. We even got to go sit in the Senate Room while House Speaker John Boehner was speaking about the government default issue. It was so interesting to me that no one was there to listen to him. All those that were there on the stand were looking at their phones computers etc. They weren't even paying attention to his passionate speech. The guide told us they just go through the motions and then they send out a hard copy to everyone to read. Silly to me. The real crazy thing to me was that the topic is HUGE right now, so you would think they would all be there sitting on the edge of their seats. We also got to ride the Senators train from the Senate Building to the Capital. It is an underground tunnel that transports mostly just senators and their interns back and forth. The detail that is in that building makes you wonder how they were able to be so modern(for lack of a better word) back then when they didn't have the technology we have now. The history in that building makes you wish that things were still being run like they originally were-- maybe that isn't ideal and it felt like just as much chaos as it does right now.

DC Trip Day 4

Wow I wish I wasn't so behind on posting I don't remember much of today. :( In the afternoon all the girls(Kris included) went to the Holocaust Museum. It was huge. I couldn't believe that Hitler was such a calculating man long before the holocaust. The Nazi party struggled and struggled but Hitler had a plan. He got into a power seat and then had all the opposing political parties arrested and then what happened to them was very similar to all those that followed them during the Holocaust. Again I found myself so appalled that someone or even people could be so arrogant and have the ability to treat other human beings the way they did; Not even just at the camps but during all of Hitlers research experiments. I don't think the man valued anyone but himself. I found it interesting the eeriness that existed in the Propaganda exhibit. It talked about how the Nazi people(with much guidance of Hitler) groomed people to see Jews as worthless, a demon, and fools. I could see some similarities of all the Republican/Democrat hatred-- it made me sick. Hello segregation.
Today we went back to the Masonic Temple. It was very interesting to go through all though our guide didn't thoroughly know about the masons-- good thing we had Darryl there to answer our questions. :) This is a picture of the front lobby.

DC Day 3

I think today we(as in the tag-alongs Karlie, Rachel, and I) spent a lot of our time at the show just browsing. Karlie and Rachel had never been to a show. In the afternoon we all met up at the Masonic Temple only to find it closed. :(
That's okay though cause there is a Rita's close--kind of :) We made the hot trek to Rita's and enjoyed a "wudder-ice" as they would say in Phili. Darryl told me about Rita's over 10 years ago and he has never quit talking about them. Every time he's close to one when he's back east he makes sure he stops in. I was so excited to finally get to taste these "celestial slurpee's." The passion fruit gelati was my favorite. I normally don't go for ice cream mixed with sherbet like stuff but their custard is SO good. If you're every close to one it's worth going. (In fact we ended up going to another Rita's that was close to our hotel the next day! :D)

DC day 2

Today we got to tour many of the Smithsonian sights. We went to the Natural History Museum, the National Archives, the Smithsonian Castle, and National Museum of American History. I was so surprised at how much time you can spend in one museum; A person could spend a whole day reading and watching everything in one museum. I didn't take many pictures partially because many of the places won't allow it because it depletes the artifacts, and the other reason I didn't was because I was too busy just taking it all in. It was so amazing to see all the different animals in the Natural History Museum--especially the sea life. I never knew squids were so big. I don't ever want to run into one of those guys. It was really neat to see the Constitution and other documents. I thought it was really interesting to learn that if they didn't do all the of the things they do to protect the Constitution the writing would have disappeared within a few years. At the American History Museum I really enjoyed walking down memory lane. There are so many things that you just don't see any more now that we're in a technology world. I was bothered by the exhibit about the African Americans. I just can't understand why people can feel mightier than someone else and let their emotions take over and then do horrible things to others because of it. Darryl, Dennis, and Kris went and sat up the both so they didn't get to join us on all of it. But we reunited, went to dinner, and then to WICKED!!!!! It was SO great--even for the second time. The first time is amazing because it's new, the second time you see connections that you didn't see the first time. Oh I love that show! I felt like the luckiest person in the world to be in DC with Darryl at Wicked.

DC Trip day 1

I got to go with Darryl on the spouse trip this year. I didn't go last year because I was nursing Cole and didn't think it would be much fun packing him all over wherever we were. This year the show we got to go to was the Fancy Food show in Washington DC(it's usually in New York but they're doing some work on the building and so they moved it to DC for a couple years). I was excited to really get to see DC. When I went to DC on the church history trip we only had a short time and the group I was with wanted to have lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and so we waited in line the whole time we could have been sight seeing, and in the end a few of us left that group so we could maybe see something and all we got to do was walk into the Air & Space Museum for about 30 min. :/ Well we made up for it on this trip. Darryl has toured DC a couple times and so he was a great tour guide. Our plane landed, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, and then we walked and walked and walked. We saw all the monuments and memorials, walked past many points of interest like the Fords Theatre, and tried to see the front of the White House but there was something going on so they wouldn't let you get anywhere you could see anything. We did get to go see the back of it. It looks small from the back. At the Lincoln Memorial a larger lady fell at the top. You can see the stretcher at the bottom of all the stairs--we didn't say around to see how they were going to get her down all those stairs. She didn't seem to really be hurt so we found some humor in the paramedic and their stretcher predicament. It was fun to see the Vietnam Memorial again. I was glad to get a digital picture of my mom's brother's name, Chris D Munson, from the wall. We headed back to the hotel about 11:00 PM and it felt like we'd already seen everything-- boy was I wrong. :)
The bottom pictures are the Korean War Memorial;Washington Monument; The Lincoln Monument; and The Washington Monument and the Jefferson Monument. The new WWII Memorial was pretty neat. I was amazed at how extensive the Roosevelt Memorial was.

Mater & the Kid Car Wash

When we went to DC Darryl's mom watched the boys for us. They sure love Granny's house. On the way down we stopped in Gunnison to check out Mater. A guy in Gunnison saw this old tow truck rusting away in a field and got it and gave it a Mater makeover. It was pretty cute. It didn't tell the boys what we were doing and so I thought they would have some kind of great reaction but they didn't. They just wanted to get to Granny's. Granny had the kid car wash set up for the Grobs, they were visiting the previous week. When Kade and Clint saw that they were in their suits and ready to try it out. I didn't think that would last since it was pretty cloudy outside but they shivered and slid anyway.

American Idol Concert

Redmond encourages their teams to do activities together-- which I think is really smart and I love to benefit from it.   Tonight Darryl and I got to go to the American Idol concert.  We usually watch at least one episode but we really haven't watched much TV lately so we had never seen any of the singers before.  It was a fun concert because there was a little of every type of music and the entertainers were always changing.  Darryl was wise and we left during the encore so we were flying on the freeway while everyone else sat in the traffic jam for hours--nice job hon!

Our July 4th Get-together

The first picture is Kade all tuckered out and asleep in his "rocket." I moved him to his bed for his nap but he looked pretty happy there.
Darryl really wanted to get a some fireworks this year since they made aerial fireworks legal in Utah this year. He went a little crazy at the firework stands and came home with more than he or I expected. :o) We only had one night with Darryl here so we invited Jackie to join us for a BBQ and fireworks. It's sure nice to have family live close. Too bad no one else could make it. The boys just think the world of all their aunts, uncles, and cousins and I love to watch them enjoy them. We also called many neighbors to come join us for cobbler and fireworks but most already had plans. Parlie Baker and his grand son came for cobbler. Adam Swayse enjoyed it all with us while his family was in Utah Co. We were happy to share with anyone. Clint picked out the firework for the finale it was Whirlwind of the Caribbean Sea which had a lot of spinning gold and teal shots--very pretty. The other favorite was That Rocks-- each shot was something different and neat.

A 4th Celebration

We spent another July evening at the Roberts. Each year they are so kind to include us in their celebration if we don't go down to Sevier Co. for the 4th. They rent bouncy slides and toys, have a yummy BBQ, shoot paper rockets, and finish the night with some classic fireworks. Today was so nice. We just relaxed enjoyed good company and watched the kids have fun. Cole didn't get in on the slides but he had just as much fun playing with the dogie dishes. Clint had a little mishap and got his fingers smashed in the playhouse door but Kade was good to comfort him.