I love Jayson

and Jayson loves me :) Jayson is my 3 year-old nephew that now lives only 45 minutes away from me in Springfield, Virginia. Since he and his family moved here 6 months ago, I've spent a lot of time at his house playing with him and his little brother, Aidan. Here are few fun pics of us hanging out at my work's party at the Marriott Ranch, Halloween, and Thanksgiving.

A Wild Trip to the Emergency Room!

Sometime soon... after finals, I will get around to blogging about this.

Let's Go Fly a Kite!!

March 29th marked the beginning of my favorite time of year in Washington D.C. which is, the "Cherry Blossom Festival." Downtown by all the historic sites, there are cherry blossom trees that were given as a gift from Japan to the US Government in the early 1900's. These trees produce the first tree blossoms of spring and are planted around the Potomac River Basin. The blossoms are pink & white and remind me of the song, "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree." To start off the festival, the city has a Kite Flying day where anyone can bring a kite down to the National Mall (the park area in the center of DC which is near the Capitol Building) and have a picnic and play. My roommate, Amanda, and I took the metro into the city and met up with ward members to enjoy the sight! The metro was so packed that it took 15 minutes for the train to unload- I've never seen it so packed! The weather was perfect for kite flying. After watching the kite festival, we walked around the basin and took in the World War II & Jefferson Memorials. At times like these, I feel so blessed to live in the DC area. Here are a few pics of the day.

Happy Easter!!

I had a wonderful relaxing Easter. Spring is here and the daffodils, tulips, and blossoms are canvassing the earth...and even better, the cold temperatures are being replaced with t-shirt weather. Our ward choir performed 6 songs for the Easter sacrament meeting program which turned out great. We have an awesome ward choir director. My roommates and I dyed eggs with Mike (a guy from our ward) in the afternoon and then we went to a potluck dinner at our neighbor, Kat Pence's place. Here are a few pics of the fun.

A visit from Verne

Verne had business meetings in Harrisburg & Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the week of March 3-7. Because it is very close to DC (about a 2 hours drive), he flew into DC to enjoy 1 day of sightseeing before driving up to PA. His coworker Nadia was also here for the meetings, so I took both of them around to the various historical sites in the city, including Arlington Cemetery, the National Archives, Supreme Court, Capitol building, Lincoln Memorial, & the Smithsonian Air & Space museum (which Verne was very excited about).

A week later on Friday evening, I took the Chinatown bus up to Philadelphia and spent the night there so that Verne and Nadia could check out the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution was signed. On Saturday afternoon, Verne and I left Nadia and drove to New York City to stay a few days in our hotel in Times Square (yes, miraculously, I was able to get a discounted rate at the Marriott Marquis). On Sunday morning, we went to church in the building where the Manhattan Temple is located and then spent the day taking in the Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera House, Central Park (where we watched a skating competition on the park rink), 5th Avenue's elite shops (ie., Tiffany's), Rockefeller Center, St. Patricks Cathedral, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Wall Street, Trinity Church, the World Trade Center site, Chinatown, and Little Italy. On Monday morning before Verne flew to Utah (to spend a few days before returning to Italy), we went to the top of the Empire State Building to check out the view of the whole city. We lucked out with the weather. Though the wind was freezing cold, the skies were sunny and blue. Thanks Verne for coming out to visit. It was fun spending time with you.

Happy Valentines Day?! :)

I admit that Valentines Day just isn't a big deal to me. Perhaps its because we didn't really celebrate this day growing up in New Zealand, or perhaps because it usually feels more like a Single Awareness Day (S.A.D. day), or perhaps, because it feels like yet another day to make people feel like they must spend money. I personally believe that any day can be a day to celebrate love. Valentine's day just feels so planned, so non- spontaneous. On the other hand, I guess it also gives us a reason to "plan" to show our love to others which I guess isn't a bad thing. Anyways, this year I went along with my roommates who were in the "loving" mood and helped them bake sugar cookies for our neighbors. Because we started the process so late in the evening, we got a little spastic the more sugar we consumed. Neither of us are dating anyone at the current time and we began to think of "one liners" from songs that we could write on the cookies. Given our "social situation", these are a few of the one-liners we came up with.


In addition, we made cookies for our single girl neighbors that said "I believe in miracles" and some for our guy neighbors that said "No woman, no cry!" (Luckily, they know us well and get our sarcastic humor!)

Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock

This year's Thanksgiving was rather original. I went to Massachussetts with my friend Marci and her husband, Carlos, (and his little brother, Sergio). Marci's family lives about 30 minutes south of Boston...and about 30 minutes west of Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock is where the first pilgrims, in their plight for religious freedom, stepped off the Mayflower and built their first settlement. After their first tough year, they gathered together at the end of their harvest season to give thanks to God and to the Indians who had helped them survive. Yes, Plymouth Rock was the place of America's First Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving Day, we drove out to Plymouth Rock, and saw the "Rock" which is much smaller than you would expect. We toured the Mayflower 2 (which is a replica of the original ship that the pilgrims used) and then visited Plymouth Plantation, a reconstructed pilgrim village where the volunteer docents act and speak as though they still live back in the 1700's. Since I love history and re-enactment stuff, I had a blast. Afterwards we drove over to Marci's brother's house which is located on Cape Cod and ate Thanksgiving dinner....turkey, stuffing, etc.

On Saturday, we drove up to Boston and spent the day walking around the city and enjoying the "Freedom Trail" free tour put on by the National Park Service. While it was a sunny day, the air was freezing cold. We stopped for a hot chocolate at Dunkin' Donuts (which by the way, happens to have a store on every other block in Massachussets!) I loved Boston...again, a place full of early American history. At the Old South Meeting House where the Boston Tea Party began, we tried on hats from the time period of the American Revolution. We visited the Massachussetts State house, the Boston Massacre site, the home of Paul Revere, and the Old North Church where Robert Newman signalled the approach of the British invasion by placing lanterns in the steeple windows. We shopped at Faneuil Hall, a marketplace since 1742, and strolled through the Italian section of town where as cold as we were, we stopped and ate gelato :)

As we left Massachussetts, I noted that the window's in the homes displayed a single candle light in each window, which I learned is the traditional Christmas decoration in these New England states. Besides the cold weather (and high taxes- so Marci tells me), I believe that I wouldn't mind living in Massachussetts.